How do women experience the workplace? What are our common threads? And does being a woman hold us back or help propel us forward? For International Women’s Day 2024, we gathered our incredible team to hold a women-led conversation about their experiences as a woman and to consider what could make for a more inclusive workplace.
As an organisation with a female CEO and a largely female leadership team, we take these conversations very seriously and want to understand how to create an environment where all of our colleagues feel understood and cared for. The conversation covered a lot of ground, exploring the whole histories (her-stories) of these women’s careers and led to some interesting kernels for all organisations to consider. Here’s what we revealed:
Default sexism is still very prominent
Everyday sexism is still everywhere. While, thankfully, no one felt this was the case within Silver Cloud, it seems that nearly every woman has experienced some element of casual sexism in their careers. Whether that’s coming across your male coworkers making inappropriate jokes at the office or male colleagues disrespecting you as a manager or being a business owner who gets asked whose wife you are at a networking event.
These ‘little moments’ of microagressions add up and can turn an otherwise supportive culture toxic. Who wants to show up to work every day when you know your colleagues see every person of your gender as a ‘different creature.’ We’re not, pal. We’re also just humans who want to be treated like it.
Harassment, sadly, hasn’t gone out of style
Unfortunately, women are still getting harassed in the workplace. Personal anecdotes of being touched by male colleagues were shared, everything from someone pinching a bottom to putting hands on waists to move someone to aggressively gripping an arm to drag them out of a seat and scold them.
Not a single one of these instances is ok and, in the mentioned workplaces, they were only done to women. Usually younger ones who don’t know any better. While some of the behaviours have been labelled more obviously as problematic and are waning, the fact remains inappropriate touch is still an issue women face in the workplace.
Becoming truly equal means helping men too
When it comes to benefits, things like short paternity leave and less flexible schedules for men are getting in the way of women’s progression now. The flexibility and stability that come with organisations offering enhanced maternity leave and changeable working schedules are appreciated and make it possible for many women to keep their jobs with either children or health issues.
However, these benefits mean that, frequently, mothers still end up taking more of the responsibility for children. So, to create a more even share of the domestic load, it would be helpful if dads had longer paternity leave or more flexibility to take on parts of the caretaker role. As it is, the lack of these benefits keep women in the primary parent role and make it more difficult to be equal partners. This is especially sad because modern families increasingly want equal opportunities to bond with and parent their children.
Maternity leave needs different support
Improvements in maternity leave have, largely, been well-received, but they don’t account for the full ramifications that women face by taking maternity leave in the first place. At its most benign, maternity leave still takes you out of the flow of business and means you have a pretty significant amount of catching up to do. At its worst, it completely disrupts and limits careers.
So what can be done?
The easiest win here is to create a re-onboarding process for people returning from maternity leave. Bring them up to speed with the changes that have happened, any shifts in strategy and interesting news. But also, take the time to meet and let them know that you understand that just because they’re back at work, it doesn’t mean everything is just like it was before.
Let them know you get that there will be times when they need to flex their schedules when things come up, or suddenly cancel meetings because their child is ill. These things happen, tell them that you’ll work to find solutions together. Not feeling alone is very important at this time.
As far as limiting careers, that’s a harder issue to solve. Many women have stories of going on maternity leave meaning career devastation. For some, it means being passed over for promotions – even if they were in the process of moving up already. For others, it means having their competence questioned at every opportunity when they return. And for others still, it can mean losing their job entirely. The fear that these instances create is very real.
We didn’t find a good solution for this because it’s a more pervasive issue than can be sorted out in a single group call. But it does require cultural changes and a people-first approach to business. After all, without your people, you don’t have a business.
Your personal attitude matters
While we can’t deny that there are matters of societal and institutional prejudice, it seems like there is an element of how you approach a situation that makes a difference in your success as well. It’s about not letting your own internalised sexism dictate how you approach a situation.
Sure, there are places that won’t want a bold or assertive woman to feel powerful. They’ll call her bossy or domineering instead of innovative or ‘leadership material.’ But you don’t have to let that narrative run free. Instead, hold your head up high and know your worth. Never let the expectation of submissiveness or silence make you feel small or quiet. And, if you’re in a situation where it feels unsafe to behave that way, seek out a group of supportive women to help lift you up.
And that’s the other part of your attitude that matters: helping other women. We can make a big difference in the workplace by lifting each other up and helping one another find success. Whether that’s through mentoring or just being an openly supportive colleague, making it clear that we’re all on the same team can be very empowering.
Societal shifts – how they are now and how they could be
There are big changes that still need to be made. Especially on the global scale. But the way women experience the workplace has changed so much over the last few decades. Our foremothers have struggled to be acknowledged as leaders and, in the cases of our Mauritius team especially, to even be a part of the workforce. And yet, now, we are able to work and lead, to excel and advance, and to find workplaces that truly respect us and our skills.
In the future, we’d love to see the societal divide about which professional roles are feminine and masculine disappear. Especially in terms of the early socialisation of children. One day, there might be no gendered difference in the marketing of toys. And people at job fairs could be more proactive about evenly attracting both genders. And we could completely phase out gendered terms for careers like police officer and fire fighter. We’ve already made such huge steps, but there’s more work yet to be done!
What it’s like to be a woman at Silver Cloud
At the end of the call, we talked about what it was like to be a woman here at Silver Cloud. Throughout the call, there had been comments peppered in like ‘obviously not here’ and ‘not at Silver Cloud, but...’, so it was clear there was a difference. And, when asked directly, there were some beautiful responses.
Overall, Silver Cloud is seen as a truly supportive and open place. One that starts with respect for everyone. Our Clouders love the psychological safety that comes from working somewhere that you won’t be dismissed or undervalued. We also appreciate that our flexible working policies support everyone in the business, regardless of gender.
Truthfully, even being a company where these conversations take place and can be so open is rare. Many of the women in today’s call have never been able to have a conversation this comfortable about these topics before. And now, collectively, we know more about how to make Silver Cloud that much more inclusive. Happy International Women’s Day 2024! #InspireInclusion
