"The very language used in these studies presupposes a male audience. They set out to convince a room full of men that making room for a woman should be their next move because it’s “productive” and “profitable.” This language equates women’s involvement in a company to a monetary asset, at odds with the argument that women deserve to be in the room in the first place. The reduction of women to a financial asset reduces their representation to a strategy. The thing with strategies, though, is that they are employed to reach a goal and then dropped once that goal is met.
Most of these studies focus on boards as a microcosm of a persistent issue within the work environment, but it’s larger than just a work problem. It’s about validation, and who gets to give it. What we do when we correlate a woman’s worth to her consumable output is take away the freedom to fail, a privilege that men exercise freely and regularly. Positioning the inclusion of women as a strategic decision, in any context, means they must behave like one; it means we are only making room for one, the best one. This is not inclusion, this is exceptionalism, and it only reinforces an environment where women are not inherently valued but instead merely allowed to participate when needed."
It's so real. These environments are still addressed as the domain of white men. I've written about this before --
Related: HBR's "Women and minorities punished..."
FB: "Most of these studies focus on boards as a microcosm of a persistent issue within the work environment, but it’s larger than just a work problem. It’s about validation, and who gets to give it."
No comments:
Post a Comment