It’s 2023. And yes, women’s work is... (Part 1)
It’s 2023. And yes, women’s work is full of challenges that men do not experience to anywhere near the same degree. The facts don’t lie. But as I mentioned in my January blog, we who identify as women, have tended to keep our heads down and bloom where we are planted alongside our, too often, unsuspecting male colleagues. We, too easily, silence the facts and disallow the truth of persistent gender bias to sink in and propel both we and others toward resolving actions. The world needs the leadership gifts of many who identify as women and so we need to inform ourselves and discern together resultant action steps because of the current leadership reality that yet equates ‘male’ as the leader in our culture. There remain gaps we must acknowledge and then act on concerning women in leadership. Some of today’s current realities for global women in leadership include:
- Gender Pay Gap
- Gender Authority Gap
- Gender Power Gap
- Gender Leadership Identity Gap
- Gender Post-Pandemic Gap
- Gender Success-Gap
For the purpose of this blog, let’s unpack the first three gender gaps that women experience in the workplace compared to men.
Gender Pay Gap:
Women earn less than men for the same role both in the US and worldwide. For the last 15 years, the gender gap in wages has remained consistent with women earning around 82-84% of what men earn. The good news is that women working between the ages of 25-34 have most closed the wage gap earning .93 cents to every dollar made by a man. But when all ages of working women are included in the US we find that it would take 42 more days of work for women to earn what men did.
Women continue to dominate lower-paying occupations which may contribute to the overall number of women absent in higher-wage occupational roles. But both here in the US and abroad there is a pay discrepancy for the same position with the same educational attainment reported by women.
Action Plan: Pay transparency. Demand performance review evaluations and recommendations for bonuses, advancement, pay scales, etc. to be non-gender biased. Commitment to the diversity of pipelines in all sectors.
Resources to Reference:
- The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart
- Gender Pay Gap in the US by Amanda Barroso and Anna Brown
- Video: DW News Study on Gender Pay Gap
Gender Authority Gap:
Women and men are close to 50/50 of the world’s population. For every 83 men who work in corporate leadership, 17 women hold similar global roles. Only 1 in 4 senior leadership women are in the C-Suite. Only 5 % of women of color senior leadership hold C-Suite executive roles. Only 13% of women are CEOs in the Oil and Gas sector and the highest woman leader representation in 2022 was in Consumer-Packaged Goods at 36%
Action Plan: Fix the broken rung where women begin from the first chance of managerial advancement to be promoted at only a ratio of 87 (82 women of color/75 Latinas) versus 100 men with comparable experience. Work on the pipeline of qualified women to be available in more equitable numbers for consideration of executive positions. Fix bias within the hiring and review process, which favors male colleagues over women (70% of men rate men more highly than women for achieving the same goals).
Resources to Reference:
- Webinar: The Corporate Gender Power Gap
- Women in the Workplace
- The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart
Gender Power Gap:
Owning shares in the company brings both wealth and influence. But shares are owned by 89 men to every 11 women in executive leadership limiting women’s voices at the decision-making table.
Action Plan: Assure invitation for executive women to own shares beyond the yet male-dominated representation of shareholders from the CEO, CFO, and COO positions.
Resources to Reference:
Image from Webinar: The Corporate Gender Power Gap
This blog was full of numbers. It might have been easy for your eyes to gloss over if you’ve made it thus far in unpacking the realities of gender bias in women’s ease and opportunity to use their transforming influence as leaders in the marketplace.
We need to do our work of understanding the realities of how women and men are viewed and treated differently in leadership.
Look for next month’s description of the gender gap in Leadership Identity (how women aren’t viewed as leaders), the gender gap that has surfaced even further because of the recent pandemic, and finally, the gender gap in experienced success for women versus men in leadership.
Be curious. Stay committed to helping everyone’s gifts belong at the proverbial table.
Thank you to the men and women who are committed to helping each team member participate fully with their unique giftedness. Only in growing our applied knowledge can we next equip all members to more justly invite and include a diverse team (including women) to lead our workplaces most effectively.
Transforming influence alongside you,
What I'm Reading:
- The Authority Gap: Why Women Are STILL Taken Less Seriously Than Men, And What We Can Do About It by Mary Ann Sieghart
- Better Work Together: How the power of community can transform your business by Susan Basterfield & Anthony Cabraal
- The Digital Pivot: Secrets of Online Marketing by Eric Schwartzman
- Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien
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