These are some of the main challenges:
1.While progress has been made on gender equality, there is currently a backlash in many countries, with men in power actively promoting misogyny and regressive models of masculinities. How can we make sure male engagement is rooted in gender equality and contributes to women’s economic empowerment and women’s rights?
2. In global business models, change has to be adapted to the country context while holding to the principles of gender equality and diversity.
3.The fact that in no country in the world do women and men share the household work and child care equally. This holds back women’s progress at work and men’s involvement with home and children.
4.There is a danger in promoting male role models that this simply puts men more into the spotlight and gives them more power.
@Katie. Thanks! Another example is Budweiser earlier this year kicked off its membership to #SEEHER with this really exciting campaign to celebrate International Women’s Day.
@Alice - Sure - it’s part of our content playbook which is accessible on our website.
The idea is that if you are reviewing content (a prospective ad) or developing it, you ask yourself essentially three core questions about it:
1 - who is present? In other words, are there men and women, as well as other forms of diversity, in the picture?
2 - what’s the perspective? In other words, who’s perspective is the story coming from? So, for example, if there are 9 women and 1 man, but it’s all from the man’s point of view then you’re likely reinforcing stereotypes and gender norms.
3 - what’s the personality of the protagonist(s)? In other words, even if there’s a good balance and the story is being told from at least an equal perspective of, say, a woman, what’s her personality in the ad? For example, an ad where the woman is the protagonist but it’s all about her struggling to make a meal her husband will love is not helpful.
So this is meant as a really simple but practical framework that allows those creating and reviewing advertising to consider what they can do differently and better.
So true, @coopermarianne - and the reason why it’s difficult to see the problem is that privilege blinds us to inequality. Men (and especially those in the majority group - race/religion/caste) are often simply unaware of what it’s like to be excluded, deprived or ignored. So it’s easier to justify the system when you benefit from it. So for Q.3 - the biggest challenge I think is overcoming privilege and system justification
@Chiara_Condi - totally agree about culture change - in order to attract, develop and retain the best talent organisations need to build inclusive cultures! Also I have seen very impressive research to show that organisations that foster the growth mindset (Dr Carol Dweck) also drive more diversity and inclusion as colleagues are more open to the ideas and perspectives of others and value their potential.
In an interview we did with Catalyst one of the challenges that came up for leaders was to think of the problem as any other problem with a set solution to implement and solve the problem. In truth, diversity and inclusion is much more complex and there is no single solution. This also means that results from initiatives that are implemented will not be immediately apparent but they will take time. It is a long process and companies have to remain engaged in the long run.
Walking the walk is very important, and that speaks to @Aarti and others’ points about diversity and inclusion. Even in the most progressive countries (such as Sweden), less than 35% of men take off the full parental leave time allotted, and in our research there, men still feel overwhelmingly like they should be the ones providing financial support, above all other support. So companies need to be intentionallyengaged in shifting norms and workplace culture.
@coopermarianne this is such an important point - it is easy for those who are not experiencing bias to be complacent about the extent of the problem. We found that conducting interviews and focus groups across the organisation to combine with the data on representation etc meant that we could bring personal quotes and different voices and experiences into the room to really raise awareness and get the whole leadership personally committed.
many thanks @DanSeymour I find it a really useful framework that can be applied more broadly!
@Chris.Hook.PMO They also need that leave to be fully paid as men still earn more than women even in Sweden! And evidence shows that if the leave is ‘use it or lose it’ men are more likely to take it.
Agreed. A promising approach to address this is perspective taking - where colleagues or community member practice adopting another person’s perspective. It can help to see new realities and to empathize.
Yes thank you @DanSeymour looks really interesting.
@Chris.Hook.PMO, @FabioVerani - one of the things that I have seen be impactful about the work CARE does in this space is building in work on the cultural norms into the design of their community programmes. Given that perceptions of gender stereotypes are engrained as young as 6 years old, raising awareness of teachers, parents, boy and girls is so important.
Totally agree @Chris.Hook.PMO I have found that in countries like the Nordics where there is more gender balance in the society, that there is still a significant underrepresentation of women in corporate leadership. The World Economic Forum research has found that male dominated culture plays a significant part in women leaving organisations.
Yes!! Empathy and perspective-taking, and goal-setting/accountability - have been found to be some of the most effective skills in studies looking at “what really works” in terms of D&I efforts…
Great Example, thanks Pam. Another similar ad was by Skol - https://www.adweek.com/creativity/this-brewer-hired-women-illustrators-to-remake-the-cringingly-sexist-ads-it-used-to-run/ Where the brand actively tore down its classic messaging and imagery that perpetuated harmful stereotypes
I fully agree with the challenges colleagues have raised, but I want to add (or build on) the issue of intersectionality. We are perhaps at the stage where we are usually having a discussion about women v men. There’s nothing wrong with that in one sense. But for a women of colour, for example, a discussion dominated by white women on diversity is not very satisfying. We need to understand that of course women, and men, are not defined purely by their sex or gender, and all of us are made up of composite identities, and that this requires us to be more differentiated and attentive in our approach to addressing diversity and inclusion.
For example, in the context of this discussion, a man who is living with a disability may find it hard to relate to the description of male privilege we employ in our regular discussion. A man from an ethnic minority may hesitate to take on board the idea that he needs to make way for women from the ethnic majority. So while it opens up more complexity, this issue of intersectionality needs to be at the front of our minds.
This, 1000x over^^^^^^
Agree Aarti, privilege is the key barrier. And we need to recognize as has been long recognized by feminist authors, that the privilege that men’s experience intersects with other privilege or oppression they may have be it of race, class, sexual orientation or many other categories.
Good point @DanSeymour also links to my earlier point about men’s contradictory experience of power. We can’t just separate our gender identities from our other identities.