Connie Tough on #EmbracingEquity
I have mixed feelings towards International Women’s Day; it’s great to put this important movement under the spotlight & see forward thinking organisations getting involved in this years theme of #EmbraceEquity. But only one day out of the year is not enough.
At Picnic, we’re extremely lucky to have a proud and affirmed feminist male founder & CEO meaning this topic is never off the table. We’re a small but mighty ad-tech start up filled with incredibly talented people.
And what’s even better? 50% of the team are women.
We’re still learning and we have lots to do; recently we launched a new global parental leave policy inclusive of paid Maternity Leave, Premature Birth, Adoption, Surrogacy, LGBTQ+ parents, Child Loss & Nursing Mothers.
Gender Equality being firmly part of the agenda, can’t be consistently said across the media industry and specifically tech start-ups. There is some incredible work happening, positive changes can be seen and celebrated - for example, women in media are reported to be at equal representation as men, promotion rates for women are reported to exceed those for men, and women are reporting high satisfaction with their career choices.
But there is still such a long way to go.
Just this week, the general of the UN said the “global progress on women’s rights is ‘vanishing before our eyes’ and the goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve”
That’s 300 years. 300. Take a moment for that to sink in.
McKinsey’s statistics show that men currently hold roughly 60% of manager positions, while women hold only 40%. This representational disparity increases with each step up the corporate ladder. For example, in the C-suite, only 1 in 4 executives are women, while fewer than 1 in 25 are women of colour. Businesses should urgently address gender equality by hiring more senior female leaders.
If we look specifically at tech, sadly but unsurprisingly, it remains a hostile environment for female employees. In a blog published just yesterday by startups.co.uk they talk to the Web Summit’s State of Gender Equity in Tech report that found 66.9% of women surveyed felt they were being paid unfairly compared to their male counterparts, while 62.9% felt pressure to choose between career and family due to the ongoing childcare crisis.
Sexism very much exists both in media & in tech. Actually, it exists everywhere.
What do I think we can do about it in the workplace?
Today - right now in fact, no matter how you identify, if you’re reading this you can start by looking within and asking yourself honestly:
- Are you aware of unconscious bias?
- Do you focus on diversity during your recruitment process?
- Do you acknowledge holidays of all cultures?
- Do you promote pay equity?
- Do you offer the same opportunities for progression and development to everyone in your business?
- Have you created fair compensation and promotion procedures?
- If you’re a woman in a senior role, are you helping the women after you climb the ladder?
- Do you hold yourself and managers accountable?
- Do you provide a safe space for employees/colleagues to call out discrimination?
- Are you building an inclusive company culture?
If you answered no to even 1 of those, you need to do something today. If everyone in business - no matter the industry - plays a role in trying to get better, we can at least try and close the 300 year gap.
And to fellow women, who like me, might sometimes feel misunderstood, hold strong opinions or have been described as ‘too much’ but are deeply passionate about what and who they believe in, are always striving to get better and have their voices heard…keep going.
And never apologise for being a strong woman. The world needs more.
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