On March 8th, we again approach International Women’s Day, since 1911 a day for celebrating the achievements of women across social, economic, cultural and political spheres and for calling for accelerated actions towards gender parity.
The theme for the 2020 event is “An equal world is an enabled world” – and the campaign hashtags are #EachforEqual and #IWD2020. Supporters are asked to strike the campaign ‘hands out equal pose’ on social media in order to spread the word for a stronger call-to-action globally.
As theglasshammer pointed out last year, both the celebration of achievements and shedding light on overlooked issues are valuable. But while one day of talking and hashtagging and ‘striking a pose’ creates salience and hopefully momentum, change asks for something less visible, less glib and even closer to home. The substance is in the message.
It’s not only about advocacy for systems and organizations and political bodies to change. It’s not only in the PR and action-based global campaigns. The call-to-action might both feel full circle and also frustrating, but it remains a big part of how change happens – especially in the places of privilege: We each have a daily, personal responsibility to create equality.
Beyond what we ask of governments or organizations, we can each work to advance the practice of equality in our own thought processes and actions. We can wake up more to the ways we each, on a daily basis, are often reinforcing the very discrimination and inequalities that we advocate against.
Gender Gaps Persist In Power and Visibility Across Spheres of Influence
A categorized breakdown by UNWomen.org highlights the immense gap between current reality and gender parity across several important fields of influence.
It has taken 25 years for political representation of women to double to women holding still only 1 in 4 global parliamentary seats. The Fortune 500 reported a peak in Women CEOs in June 2019, but that milestone “peak” is less than 7% of 500 CEO seats. To date, only 53 of the 900 Noble Peace Prize winners have been women, with only 19 winners in the categories of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine. Only 30% of STEM current researchers are women, and only 35% of STEM students are.
When it comes to media representation, the creative engine of our cultural narrative, women are one third as visible as men. A global media study across 20 years and 114 countries showed that “only 24 per cent of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news are women.” Women are also only 26% of persons covered in digital media and a decade-long stagnant 37% of news reporters. Only a pithy 4% of total stories challenge gender stereotyping.
Entertainment, it seems, reflects reality in the relative skewed representation towards men’s voices and men’s experience. A popular films analysis across 11 countries found that only 31% of all speaking characters were women and only 23% had a female protagonist, perhaps not shockingly mirroring that 21% of filmmakers are women.
Women are not only scarce in positions of power and influence. We are simply less present in the cultural feed that influences so much of our conditioned perception.
UN Women “Generational Equality” Campaign Also Iterates Individual Agency
As stated on the campaign site, #EachforEqual is calling for ‘Collective Individualism’: “Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”
The UN International Women’s Day 2020 campaign also reflects the ‘collective individualism’ theme: “I am Generational Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights,” with a continued focus on uniting all advocates for equality – regardless of race, age, country, gender, religion, ethnicity etc – but especially across generations.
2020 represents 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on women, which is “recognized as the most progressive roadmap for the empowerment of women and girls, everywhere” and set out to achieve global gender equality across 12 critical areas.
According to UN Women, this is a pivotal year for taking worldwide stock of progress made on women’s rights, and accelerating gender equality now.
The organization reports, “The emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonizingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world. Today, not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture. Women and girls continue to be undervalued; they work more and earn less and have fewer choices; and experience multiple forms of violence at home and in public spaces. Furthermore, there is a significant threat of rollback of hard-won feminist gains.”
What Could Collective Individualism Look Like?
“We are all parts of a whole,” iterates #EachforEqual. “Our individual actions, conversations, behaviors and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society.”
In resonance with #EachForEqual, UN Women states that change “isn’t just about big headline moments, legal victories and international agreements: the way we talk, think, and act every day can create a ripple effect that benefits everyone.”
On this point, the UN Women campaign has introduced “12 Small Actions with Big Impact for Generation Equality.” These include: share the (domestic, unpaid, parenting) care, call out sexism and harassment, reject the binary, demand an equal work culture, exercise your political rights, shop responsibly, amplify feminist books and movies and more, teach girls their worth, challenge what it means to be a “man”, commit to a cause, challenge beauty standards and respect the choices of others.
Hira Ali in Forbes also offers up four suggestions for activating #EachForEqual: create awareness about generation equality; support non-profit organizations for women; celebrate, support and collaborate with other women; and start mentoring girls early.
Most of all, when it comes to all belief constructs, we need to challenge where we’ve swallowed the story ourselves. While we cannot control or choose every thought that crosses the pasture of our minds, we can wake up to realizing that our thoughts, instincts, feelings, etc are unconsciously biased by internalized societal gendered conditioning. And we can know that this is further reinforced by systemic bias, so we’re often more supported to go down the well-trafficked path of bias.
Paradigms are hard to shake. Often we neither realize insidious bias is in play, nor how it permeates our thoughts, our fears, our assumptions and our actions. As theglasshammer CEO Nicki Gilmour recommends, “Test assumptions for best results.”
This is part of why Catalyst’s #BiasCorrect Campaign, launched in 2019, actively focuses on helping “individuals identify and mitigate the biases that exist in our workplaces and within each of us.”
The overall IWD campaign message of 2020 seems to boil down to this: Call yourself to action, for the collective change. Anything that is systemic will eventually falter if more and more individuals no longer acquiesce, consent, conform or comply – in the many conscious and unconscious daily ways we do – to support the status quo.
This year’s IWD2020 theme is iterating that agency for change begins with intentionally becoming more equality, inside and out, in how you perceive and show up in the world.
Authors Bio: Aimee Hansen is a freelance writer, frequent contributor to theglasshammer and Creator and Facilitator of Storyteller Within Retreats, Lonely Planet recommended women’s circle retreats focused on self-exploration and connecting with your inner truth and sacred expression through writing, yoga, meditation, movement and ceremonies.
Women’s History Month 2020: Stories We Tell Ourselves.
Op-EdSo, What is Really Holding Women Back?
In the April 2020 edition of HBR, Robin Ely and Irene Padevic pose and answer the eternal question of “What’s really holding women back?” In their specific case study, they conclude that a crushing long hours game was actually causing dissatisfaction for everyone, but disproportionately affecting women because they singularly were expected to take accommodations which ended up being career damaging actions sometimes. The researchers state,
“Social defense systems are insidious. They divert attention from a core anxiety-provoking problem by introducing a less-anxiety-provoking one that can serve as a substitute focus.”
Ely and Padevic studied a firm where the core problem discovered by them (impossibly long work hours) was not what the firm’s espoused challenge focus which was the ‘inability to promote and retain women’ creating a substitute problem to avoid the real one. The researchers concluded that by using family accommodations or flex work as the solution to the “substitute problem”, an invisible and self-reinforcing social-defense system was created with the result of covering inefficient work practices “in the rhetoric of necessity” while perpetuating gender disparities since only women were truly culturally expected to take advantage of the accommodations.
In my opinion, without knowing the name of the client that these revered psychologists conducted this work at, this is the type of firm that probably charges other firms five million dollars per consulting project to tell them how to work more efficiently but entirely misses the point on the social psychology and how behaviors are formed for humans, both in their own firm and the firms they are busy also creating substitute problems for regarding “diversity” and people. I mean isn’t it hypocritical of big consulting firms and banks to write studies about gender progress when they themselves are so far from getting their own house in order? People notice, eventually or seemingly they don’t notice or choose to ignore it?
Behaviors and Diversity – we tell ourselves what is what (falsely)
A new UN study on “Tackling Social Gender Norms” reports that 50% of the humans in the world still think men make better leaders and in some countries, 70% of people believe men deserve a job more than women do and overall on all factors over 90% of people have bias against women or bias in favor of men if you want to look it at that way. This study importantly and perhaps uniquely measures gender inequality from a social norm perspective and how this is operationalized through beliefs, attitudes and practices most notable the prescribing social roles and power relations between men and women in society that are shockingly defined in western developed countries like the USA over southern European countries like Spain who literally invested the word “machista”. This methodology is super important as the diversity panels and parties that have focused for the past twenty years on “awareness” just aren’t converting behaviors in anyone, women included to ones that make people vote in female leaders in government or at work. Equality begins and ends with equitable behaviors and systems thinking to reduce or destroy the legacy processes and this is just absent in the design of work and the workplace.
Robin Ely along with Herminia Ibarra and Deborah Kolb are also among my favorite academics on this topic and in many ways nothing can best explain the seemingly large and continued demand for white male leaders than their 2013 piece Women Rising: the unseen barriers which states that women are basically expected to turn into men as those traits are still the ‘mold’. Yet face the double bind when they try to gain experience that would let them internalize the identity and affirmation of a leader that is needed and given to the legacy group of who we believed to be leaderlike.
As the 2013 piece suggests, it is the absence of recognizing bias which is now second generation and covert harder to spot bias that leaves people with beliefs that limit the progress of women and as the Barriers Unseen study reveals,
“People are left with stereotypes to explain why women as a group have failed to achieve parity with men: If they can’t reach the top, it is because they “don’t ask,” are “too nice,” or simply “opt out.” These messages tell women who have managed to succeed that they are exceptions and women who have experienced setbacks that it is their own fault for failing to be sufficiently aggressive or committed to the job.”
This past week we have had an applied case study on who we endorse for as a leader with Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar both folding their campaigns while being criticized for being too shrill and strident and then too nasty respectively. Meanwhile, two ancient white men battle to face off with another ancient incumbent white guy in the other team come November. Some women are licking their wounds on Facebook over Warren it seems in particular, but we know when women and people of color call out gender inequality, the cost of this can be actually emotionally high as well as career damaging.
Are we getting anywhere?
Over twenty years ago, Robin Ely co-wrote with David A. Thomas a piece in HBR called “Making Differences Matter: A New paradigm for diversity” that suggested then that we get past the “fairness (and discrimination)” paradigm or simply put the business case of “it’s the right thing to do”. Ely and her co-author also suggested that the next paradigm in 1998 was only the penultimate one and that this second phase was witnessed when companies believed in appointing women to sell to women, and LGBT just sell to LGBT and minorities to sell to minorities with invisible limitations of side show type exclusion from the main attraction. The emerging paradigm from twenty-two years ago is I guess, is still sadly only slowly emerging and that is the learning-and-effectiveness paradigm which requires real work to get to the structural change that is needed. They write,
“Companies in which the third paradigm is emerging have leaders and managers who take responsibility for removing the barriers that block employees from using the full range of their competencies, cultural or otherwise. Racism, homophobia, sexism, and sexual harassment are the most obvious forms of dominance that decrease individual and organizational effectiveness—and third-paradigm leaders have zero tolerance for them. In addition, the leaders are aware that organizations can create their own unique patterns of dominance and subordination based on the presumed superiority and entitlement of some groups over others.”
We are in 2020 still hiding behind our deeply ingrained beliefs that women aren’t as leaderlike and that babies are the reason we are not promoted in the same numbers or authorized in the same way as our male counterparts are. Yet, childless women do not get promoted or authorized any more than women with kids do as they are hit by the same stereotype which is easier than addressing the real issues for all women and all humans, which is work simply isnt working for most people anymore without one person taking a back seat and due to pay inequity, it is usually the woman if we are speaking heteronormatively in the structure.
Women can be great, smart, experienced, and full of solid plans and still be dinged with a negative stereotype even when like the Elizabeth and Bernie situation are the saying the same thing. While the positive stereotype of great leader, competent, full of potential is still attributed to the male version of themselves or a much lesser version of themselves.
The stories we tell ourselves about the way it is, or what is better have been whispered in our ear by our grandmother, our parents and our surrounding society and are reinforced everyday of our lives. These stories are placed both subliminally and explicitly and create our beliefs and criteria and our behaviors. The stories that we tell ourselves that time will fix inequality are not true. The only thing that will stop this within our lifetime or even our children’s lifetime is to do the work regarding our deepest constructs of “what boys are and what girls are” while addressing the systems that enable and endow advantage and create disadvantage for no other reason than biology.
Op-ed: Don’t Call it a ‘Pipeline Problem’
Op-EdI can tell you from my fifteen years of experience investing in areas overlooked by most investors that the opportunities are definitely there. To take just one example, Black women are starting businesses at the fastest rate in the United States – and are receiving under 0.1 percent of all venture funding.
That’s a number that should shock you. For investors, it should also get you excited. As the head of the Urban Investment Group at Goldman Sachs, through which we’ve invested over $1 billion in opportunities led by people of color, and as one of the lead investors for Launch With GS, it’s my job to drive capital where talent is abundant but access to capital is not. And let me just say this: That is an incredibly compelling investment strategy.
In the 18 months since we started Launch With GS, our commitment to invest in businesses with diverse leadership, we’ve invested $230 million globally, backing businesses with game-changing ideas, innovative products and cutting edge technology. Our returns-driven investment thesis spans geographies and sectors – from a software provider in Atlanta, to a fintech company in Bengaluru and a pediatrics clinic in Shanghai. Along the way, we’ve heard from more than 7,000 entrepreneurs and investors, whose insights continue to shape the initiative.
But our ambition is to do much more. We started Launch With GS with the clear conviction that diverse leadership teams perform better. We knew there was opportunity in what is essentially an underinvested asset class. But we also knew that the forces behind that lack of investment were complex. The gap is about relationships, networks, biases, resources – the entire structure of the global funding ecosystem.
That’s why today, we’re announcing our first Launch With GS Black and Latinx Entrepreneur Cohort to connect growth-minded founders with the very best of Goldman Sachs. Over the course of 8 weeks, we’ll pair emerging companies with leaders at the firm who are experts in their fields – whether that’s an enterprise software investor, fintech research analyst, or a consumer retail-focused investment banker. And just as importantly, we’ll connect these companies to the Goldman Sachs network, including Fortune 500 companies that could be their customers, and leading start-up advisors who could help support their growth.
I’m an investor. I get excited by meeting ambitious people who are building great companies. Launch With GS is about connecting those founders to Goldman Sachs, a recipe that for more than 150 years has led to some pretty extraordinary successes. Launch With GS is already a part of that history. With the Black and Latinx Entrepreneur Cohort, this is one more step toward building an inclusive future.
Voice of Experience: Lisa Atlas Genecov, Partner, Katten
People, Voices of ExperienceTrust your instincts and let them guide you, advises Katten’s Lisa Atlas Genecov. Her instincts lit the way to a path that has allowed her to have a fulfilling career and simultaneously raise a family.
Finding Success Through Forging An Alternate Way
Genecov began her law career in Dallas as a Mergers and Acquisitions attorney, with stints at several large regional and national law firms. After her youngest child, now 26, was born, she decided it was time to downshift for a period, and she began to work three days a week for a smaller firm.
“I didn’t want to miss all those important milestones that my kids would have, but I didn’t want to stop working completely,” she notes, echoing a common theme among many working moms. At the smaller firm, she found herself handling numerous healthcare transactions, along with her general M&A work, and realized how much she enjoyed it. She pivoted to the health care space, and it soon became 100% of the focus of her legal practice.
When Genecov decided to return back to a larger firm and a full-time practice three (3) years later, she maintained that specialty, eventually becoming the firm’s Health Care Practice Group leader. Looking back, she has come to appreciate the fact that transitioning to part-time status led to the most rewarding shift for her career—not only did she have more time with her kids, but it allowed her the opportunity to try something new which propelled her practice into a different and very busy direction, just as health care reform came into focus and the Affordable Care Act was later signed into law, dramatically reshaping the country’s health care landscape.
About eight months after Katten opened its Dallas office in February 2018, Genecov joined the firm as Co-Chair of its National Health Care Practice Group. She came to Katten with two female lateral partners – Cheryl Camin Murray and Kenya Woodruff – both of whom she has respected and known for years but they hadn’t practiced together. They established Katten’s first Health Care practice in Dallas, counseling health care providers in connection with major transactions and regulatory issues while working closely with the firm’s white collar attorneys on health care litigation matters.
“I’m proud that I came together with these other partners to grow our complementary practices,” Genecov says. “It’s exciting to be working at a growing and successful office of a well-respected national law firm and health care practice where I enjoy working with my colleagues every day. And along with that, I’m proud to have been able to maintain a robust and satisfying career while raising two awesome kids who have become two awesome adults.”
Succeeding in the Balancing Act
In fact, Genecov believes that one of the biggest issues for women when choosing a place to work—whether it’s a firm, public service or in-house position—is to make sure you are well supported at your workplace, but also at home if you are planning to raise a family.
It’s important to proactively find mentors and sponsors at the start of and throughout your career, she said. “Look for mentors who are good at helping you in particular aspects of your career. If there’s a job that’s not working, find one that better suits your needs, and don’t be afraid of making a change,” she says, pointing to her own experience as the catalyst for a positive new path. “I wasn’t afraid to take an opportunity if it seemed like the right one.”
Along the way she has appreciated the people who have helped her, and for that reason Genecov says she always tries to be a good mentor to other women lawyers, some of whom are now in the C-suite in-house or in legal departments of large companies, of which she’s very proud.
Diversity has always been a key value for Genecov. In fact, at her prior firm she was chief diversity officer, where she felt she was able to make a positive impact on retention and advancement. She’s also invested in helping ensure the success of the next generation and pleased that Katten recently moved its Dallas office to the Uptown “Park District” area. “We are always looking for ways we can appeal to what younger attorneys value, and our high-tech, flexible office that focuses on green space will help us to successfully do that.”
In addition to her busy practice, Genecov is president of the Executive Committee and a founding member of the Center for Women in Law at the University of Texas, which helps to advance women at all phases of the legal profession. For many years, she has also been an active volunteer and Board Member with the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas.
Now that her children are adults, she and her husband continue to find meaningful ways to spend time together; often traveling to places, including Europe and Colorado, as well as enjoying sporting events and music closer to home. “I’m so proud of my kids, and the best part is that we really enjoy one another’s company,” she says.
2020 International Women’s Day: A Call To Take Individual Reins On Collective Equality
International Womens DayThe theme for the 2020 event is “An equal world is an enabled world” – and the campaign hashtags are #EachforEqual and #IWD2020. Supporters are asked to strike the campaign ‘hands out equal pose’ on social media in order to spread the word for a stronger call-to-action globally.
As theglasshammer pointed out last year, both the celebration of achievements and shedding light on overlooked issues are valuable. But while one day of talking and hashtagging and ‘striking a pose’ creates salience and hopefully momentum, change asks for something less visible, less glib and even closer to home. The substance is in the message.
It’s not only about advocacy for systems and organizations and political bodies to change. It’s not only in the PR and action-based global campaigns. The call-to-action might both feel full circle and also frustrating, but it remains a big part of how change happens – especially in the places of privilege: We each have a daily, personal responsibility to create equality.
Beyond what we ask of governments or organizations, we can each work to advance the practice of equality in our own thought processes and actions. We can wake up more to the ways we each, on a daily basis, are often reinforcing the very discrimination and inequalities that we advocate against.
Gender Gaps Persist In Power and Visibility Across Spheres of Influence
A categorized breakdown by UNWomen.org highlights the immense gap between current reality and gender parity across several important fields of influence.
It has taken 25 years for political representation of women to double to women holding still only 1 in 4 global parliamentary seats. The Fortune 500 reported a peak in Women CEOs in June 2019, but that milestone “peak” is less than 7% of 500 CEO seats. To date, only 53 of the 900 Noble Peace Prize winners have been women, with only 19 winners in the categories of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine. Only 30% of STEM current researchers are women, and only 35% of STEM students are.
When it comes to media representation, the creative engine of our cultural narrative, women are one third as visible as men. A global media study across 20 years and 114 countries showed that “only 24 per cent of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news are women.” Women are also only 26% of persons covered in digital media and a decade-long stagnant 37% of news reporters. Only a pithy 4% of total stories challenge gender stereotyping.
Entertainment, it seems, reflects reality in the relative skewed representation towards men’s voices and men’s experience. A popular films analysis across 11 countries found that only 31% of all speaking characters were women and only 23% had a female protagonist, perhaps not shockingly mirroring that 21% of filmmakers are women.
Women are not only scarce in positions of power and influence. We are simply less present in the cultural feed that influences so much of our conditioned perception.
UN Women “Generational Equality” Campaign Also Iterates Individual Agency
As stated on the campaign site, #EachforEqual is calling for ‘Collective Individualism’: “Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”
The UN International Women’s Day 2020 campaign also reflects the ‘collective individualism’ theme: “I am Generational Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights,” with a continued focus on uniting all advocates for equality – regardless of race, age, country, gender, religion, ethnicity etc – but especially across generations.
2020 represents 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on women, which is “recognized as the most progressive roadmap for the empowerment of women and girls, everywhere” and set out to achieve global gender equality across 12 critical areas.
According to UN Women, this is a pivotal year for taking worldwide stock of progress made on women’s rights, and accelerating gender equality now.
The organization reports, “The emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonizingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world. Today, not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture. Women and girls continue to be undervalued; they work more and earn less and have fewer choices; and experience multiple forms of violence at home and in public spaces. Furthermore, there is a significant threat of rollback of hard-won feminist gains.”
What Could Collective Individualism Look Like?
“We are all parts of a whole,” iterates #EachforEqual. “Our individual actions, conversations, behaviors and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society.”
In resonance with #EachForEqual, UN Women states that change “isn’t just about big headline moments, legal victories and international agreements: the way we talk, think, and act every day can create a ripple effect that benefits everyone.”
On this point, the UN Women campaign has introduced “12 Small Actions with Big Impact for Generation Equality.” These include: share the (domestic, unpaid, parenting) care, call out sexism and harassment, reject the binary, demand an equal work culture, exercise your political rights, shop responsibly, amplify feminist books and movies and more, teach girls their worth, challenge what it means to be a “man”, commit to a cause, challenge beauty standards and respect the choices of others.
Hira Ali in Forbes also offers up four suggestions for activating #EachForEqual: create awareness about generation equality; support non-profit organizations for women; celebrate, support and collaborate with other women; and start mentoring girls early.
Most of all, when it comes to all belief constructs, we need to challenge where we’ve swallowed the story ourselves. While we cannot control or choose every thought that crosses the pasture of our minds, we can wake up to realizing that our thoughts, instincts, feelings, etc are unconsciously biased by internalized societal gendered conditioning. And we can know that this is further reinforced by systemic bias, so we’re often more supported to go down the well-trafficked path of bias.
Paradigms are hard to shake. Often we neither realize insidious bias is in play, nor how it permeates our thoughts, our fears, our assumptions and our actions. As theglasshammer CEO Nicki Gilmour recommends, “Test assumptions for best results.”
This is part of why Catalyst’s #BiasCorrect Campaign, launched in 2019, actively focuses on helping “individuals identify and mitigate the biases that exist in our workplaces and within each of us.”
The overall IWD campaign message of 2020 seems to boil down to this: Call yourself to action, for the collective change. Anything that is systemic will eventually falter if more and more individuals no longer acquiesce, consent, conform or comply – in the many conscious and unconscious daily ways we do – to support the status quo.
This year’s IWD2020 theme is iterating that agency for change begins with intentionally becoming more equality, inside and out, in how you perceive and show up in the world.
Authors Bio: Aimee Hansen is a freelance writer, frequent contributor to theglasshammer and Creator and Facilitator of Storyteller Within Retreats, Lonely Planet recommended women’s circle retreats focused on self-exploration and connecting with your inner truth and sacred expression through writing, yoga, meditation, movement and ceremonies.
Where the “Pink Collar” Has Been Flipped Up in Today’s Workforce
Guest ContributionThe term likely came about in the aftermath of World War II. As many as 5 million women entered the workforce between 1940 and 1945 to fill the roles left behind by men. When men came back from the war, women were largely relegated to teaching, service, and clerical roles. The term really took hold in the late 1970s when Louise Kapp Howe, an author who focused on social issues, published her book Pink Collar Workers, which explored the lives of nurses, secretaries, and teachers — industries dominated by women at the time.
There have been some momentous shifts — and other not-so-progressive shifts — in pink collar jobs since World War II. For example, based on U.S. Census data, the top six jobs with the highest percentages of women (90% or more) in 1940 included nurses, midwives, telephone operators, secretaries/stenographers, domestic service workers, and boarding housekeepers.
As you can imagine, the jobs in those top six spots today have changed dramatically. They’re much more focused on health and child care. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they include pre-k and kindergarten teachers, dental hygienists, speech-language pathologists, dental assistants, childcare workers, and medical records technicians.
What’s particularly interesting is looking at which jobs have seen the biggest increases and decreases in the percentage of women between 1940 and 2019.
For example, jobs that have become “less” pink collar in the eight decades since World War II include tobacco manufacturers, textile manufacturers, janitors, musicians, and nurses. One of the most popular examples of fading pink collar norms lies in the nursing industry.
If you were to travel back in time to 1940, you would see that 98% of nurses were female (based on U.S. Census data). Today, that percentage has fallen to 89%. That 11-point drop might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Here’s why. Though women still dominate this traditionally pink collar field, more men continue to enter.
Experts attribute this trend to a number of factors. For one thing, there’s an incredible demand for health professionals, and there simply aren’t enough women to fill the demand. On the other hand, nursing schools have begun to rise above the gender stereotypes (that nursing has to be seen as a “woman’s job”), targeting men in their recruiting efforts and contributing to the de-stigmatization of the job.
Many jobs have also become “more” pink collar since 1940. One particularly strong example is the real estate industry. In 1940, 10% of women were real estate agents, according to the U.S. Census Data. Today, that percentage has ballooned to 59%.
There have also been significant increases in the percentage of women in highly technical fields, like law (3% in 1940 vs. 33% in 2019) and medicine (5% in 1940 vs. 41% in 2019), and service fields, like housekeeping (78% in 1940 vs. 89% in 2019) and restaurant hospitality (56% in 1940 vs. 71% in 2019).
Meanwhile, the data show that there have been only slight shifts between 1940 and 2019 in the percentage of women working as teachers and secretaries — and in private households.
It’s interesting to study these so-called pink collar jobs over time because the lines between pink collar and non-pink collar are rapidly blurring. Take a look at these Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for the fastest growing and declining industries in the U.S. through 2028.
The top four fastest growing industries (home healthcare services, outpatient care centers, individual and family services, and offices of health practitioners) are dominated by women. Meanwhile three of the four most rapidly declining industries (tobacco manufacturing, federal electric utilities, and communications equipment assembly) are dominated by men.
It only makes sense that, as so-called blue collar jobs decline due to factors like globalization, technology, and the shrinking of unions, more men will take on pink collar jobs, and more women will work in roles that society has traditionally seen as male.
As gender stereotypes and bias in the workplace dissipate, it’s important for companies to attract women by using gender-neutral language in their recruiting efforts. They should also promote pay transparency and offer work flexibility for both male and female workers.
Check out the full analysis of trends in pink collar jobs and accompanying data visualizations.
Author: Meredith Wood
Bio: Meredith Wood is a vice president at Fundera. She is frequently sought out for her expertise in small business lending and frequently contributes to SBA, SCORE, Yahoo, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, American Banker, Small Business Trends, MyCorporation, Small Biz Daily, and StartupNation.
Andrea Mygrant; Managing Director, Major Accounts; FIS Global
Voices of Experience“I saw that it was vital early in my career to make sure I had a great mentor who guided me to prioritize meeting everyone I could—both within my firm and externally with clients—and then to keep in touch.” As she notes, it’s a small community and industry, and she has frequently seen people who have circled back into her life. “They have helped me build new relationships and boosted my progression,” she notes, adding that not everyone realizes how important it is to focus on building that strong network early on to help open doors throughout your career.
Client Service at the Core
Although Mygrant was pursuing a pre-vet track in college, she changed directions after an internship at financial services firm Brown Brothers Harriman which was her first time working in fintech and with clients.
Working at a global custodian firm like that provided an important perspective on how the entire industry worked, thus kicking off her new career path. Ever since, she’s been focused on client relationships, up to her current role where she builds those relationships at an executive level.
With an insatiable curiosity, Mygrant has always looked forward to the next big thing as there’s always something innovative happening in this space. Just recently she helped a large client she’s partnered with over the past two years successfully launch a complex, integrated solution.
“It had very high visibility in the organization.They were looking for a solution of different products to link together using tools that hadn’t been deployed in conjunction before,” Mygrant explains. “We were able to jointly put together the pieces, thus fulfilling a complicated deal with a lot of moving parts and unknowns.” They achieved a successful go live in January 2020. “I’m really proud that we were able to build something brand new that was important for them to be successful, resulting in such a satisfied client.”
In an industry that’s always changing, she’s currently observing the new “blurry lines” separating pure technology firms that are veering into territory occupied by financial institutions. “I’m watching big companies like Amazon or Google and seeing what they will do going forward. It’s vital to be quick to market, and they have the resources to do that.”
Giving Women the Support to Be Successful
As a new mom, Mygrant has been particularly focused on new challenges she’s encountered by being a working mom in the finance industry. Of course, she realizes that many things have improved over the past decade, from extended maternity or paternity leave to funding for IVF to the ability to ship milk when you travel. But here are still disparities—such as the fact that there might be a space set aside to pump, but it’s not always comfortable or convenient. And while some states are improving laws and implementing steps forward, she believes that it’s up to senior women in the workforce to help get the message heard throughout organizations. “Having key programs and options in place makes people want to come back,” she notes. “Support your employees and they’ll be loyal.”
Another way Mygrant sees that companies should support their employees is through robust mentorship programs. “I can’t emphasize enough how much my mentors molded and shaped me in the right way early in my career.” She now pays it forward to other women in her organization but is well aware that in a cost-cutting environment, formal programs may become downscaled or vanish. And that’s a shame she says, since helping guide young professionals is a huge win for companies.
Her advice to newer talent is to never be afraid to ask for what they need or to take chances. “The worst that can happen is that someone says no.” You will never feel 100% confident about something new and so you have to go for it.”
Baking as Relaxation
While free time is at a premium with a young child, Mygrant is still able to indulge in one of her biggest passions—baking. She is a member of a cookbook club and a baking club, and every year around the holidays, which also coincides with her birthday, she takes two days off and bakes upwards of 30 items for a huge holiday party and as gifts for friends. “Baking is a fantastic way to relieve stress and remove yourself from a job that today is a 24-hour endeavor, given all the ways we are connected. It’s a huge relief to do something I enjoy, and at the same time, it allows me to give back to my friends.”
Kacy J. Gambles, SVP Regional Manager of Investment and Fiduciary Services for the East Bay and San Jose California Regions, Wells Fargo Private Bank
Voices of ExperienceKacy always had an interest in two things: people and numbers. When she thought about career choices she wanted to marry these two interests together. The discussion of finances was not exactly dinner table conversation, however through the perseverance and ‘scrappiness’ of her mother, Kacy was exposed to different job functions within the financial industry. Ultimately she was led to wealth management when she stumbled upon an advertisement to study for the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM designation.
Kacy started her career at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh, PA in 2003 and held a number of positions in the company’s wealth management division, from an associate trust advisor & portfolio manager to a product manager covering the separately managed accounts and alternative investments platforms. Ultimately, she knew she enjoyed the client-facing side of the business and made the decision to obtain her MBA at The Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. In 2009 while finishing her MBA at Tuck, and attending the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) annual conference, she crossed paths with one of Wells Fargo’s senior leaders who invited her to join his California based team in the Private Bank in an investment management development program. She has served as an investment strategist managing high-net-worth clients’ portfolios and then moved into management as a regional investment manager. This path led to her 2017 promotion and her present day role as SVP leading a team of experienced financial professionals who help clients work toward their unique goals by providing investment management, trust and estate services, as well as specialized wealth services including legacy planning, real estate asset management, philanthropic, and business advisory services.
Being an African American executive, Kacy discusses her journey in the financial services industry and how proud she is to be navigating the journey as a woman of color every day, and acknowledges the power of sponsors who have advocated for her along the way.
“There aren’t many individuals who look like me and I have been able to navigate this industry with the support of great individuals of all types who took an interest in my career and my success.”
Gambles is keen to distinguish the difference between mentors and sponsors and urges people to understand the power of a sponsor who can truly advocate for you at the table where you are not seated. She believes more courageous conversations are the key to seeing change in the industry and in the need to advocate for hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds. And, that people should raise their hands to be matched with mentors and sponsors. She opines that Wells Fargo has a great programmatic approach to supporting women in the firm that she feels she has benefited from along the way.
“There is so much value in mentoring as it is a two directional relationship where both sides get to learn and address unconscious biases.”
She recounts recently going to a Tesla showroom and servicing shop and finding herself surprised at the number of female engineers; an example whereby we can all be caught unaware of the unconscious bias that can lurk in our brains if we are honest with ourselves in recognizing it.
Being a good manager is important to her and creating a team where people can be themselves is a continual goal of hers and she works to create space for all people to be themselves.
“When someone says thank you for listening and letting me be my authentic self and to be visible, I feel very proud. Diversity and ultimately inclusion means people can come to the table and feel like they are heard and this goes for ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and even mental health diversity which is increasingly recognized.”
Change Agent
Inspiring and humble, Kacy is clearly motivated by being “the voice and the change” as she puts it “within the community and internally within the team”. She explains that a village helped raise her and she believes that coaching, inspiring, mentoring, developing and giving back is important to her in the work that she does inside and outside the firm.
“I am excited to be a change agent as how we (Wells Fargo) are seen in the community is important both in doing the best work to meet the wealth management goals of clients, and in solidifying an organization with great team members so that people can continue to believe in the organization.”
Kacy energetically talks about the increase of women owned businesses and within that the number of African American and Latinx women who are changing the lending culture by virtue of being the job creators and the product leaders in communities. She is excited by millennials and how they approach their careers and what their wealth needs will be in the future.
Tenacity on the Journey
Kacy reiterates tenacity as a trait that is helpful in building a career recounting that she got a lot of “no’s” but she chose to hear these as “not now” instead. She emphasizes the importance of being the owner of your career and figuring out the pathways to get more “yeses”. She believes that some barriers are organizational and can change with processes such as panel-based decisions in hiring but is forthright that individuals can self- impose their own limitations and believes that a “can do” attitude is crucial for success.
Kacy relays her advice that she would give to her younger self, “I tended to be quieter in meetings and I wish I had taken more chances. I was once advised that when someone thinks you are ready for an opportunity don’t insult them by saying you can’t. Now I realize that my advice to others is that you always can. You have the skills, resources, and examples. If you don’t see it then you can become the light for the people behind you.”
Outside of work she offers that her spiritual side is her foundation and that she was raised by strong women who remind her where she came from and keep her humble and that she has to “pull people up with me”.
Kacy enjoys travel with a philanthropic twist as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.
“I always leave feeling that the people building the houses get more than we give on these trips as it is the human side of connecting that matters and love still abounds and we as humans are resilient. It is very humbling.”
What Tom Brady taught me about leadership: Op-ed
Op-EdWhen mentoring young professionals, I like to start with two important and accessible leadership lessons that I learned from the New England Patriots star quarterback, Tom Brady.
Say Yes More Often.
One of my former CEOs called me and said he needed me to represent the bank at a fundraising event – a football scrimmage, featuring some celebrity guests – to raise money for a great cause. While I love athletics, I had never tossed a football around, and participating in a football scrimmage was a bit out of my comfort zone. But my boss encouraged me to give it a shot, and I said, “yes.”
Later that day, I arrived at Harvard Stadium, and as I entered the locker room to prepare for the game, I quickly realized that I was surrounded by professional football players from the New England Patriots. And then, to top it all off, Brady walked to the front of the room and gave us all a little pep talk. It certainly was not the afternoon I expected when my boss casually asked me if I wanted to attend an event on behalf of the bank. I learned my first lesson. Say yes to an opportunity even when it’s outside your comfort zone.
Brady went on to explain that he would be the quarterback for both teams and would pass the ball to the young adults whom this charitable organization helped support. Minutes before the end of the first half, Brady looked my way and said “Maria, this next one is headed to you.” As I started to plead with him to find another target, he fixed me with a rather disapproving look and said, “Hi, my name is Tom Brady, and I’m known for being a pretty good quarterback.” He shook my hand. “I usually can get a football to land where I want it to go. Will you trust me on this? I know you can do it.”
That’s when I learned the second lesson of the day: even if you’re nervous, don’t be afraid to say yes and believe in yourself. It would have been a missed opportunity if I had said no, and a decision that I would have regretted years later. I am thankful that I was in the presence of a quarterback who knew what was best for the team, believed in me and encouraged me to try.
And you know what? I ran down the field and Brady hit me with a perfect pass. I caught it, kept running and scored a touchdown. Greatness can be found outside of your comfort zone, but you have to be willing to try.
Give your team confidence.
Brady believed in himself and showed me that I could trust him. And together, we were able to succeed.
In the following weeks, I realized there was a hidden lesson in this story that was not obvious. Brady showed me that to get the most out of your team, it’s important to remind them that you can deliver. You’re the quarterback who can put the ball right where your team needs it to be. Or you’re the team lead that can provide your colleagues with the confidence to run down the field, catch the ball, and score their own touchdown. There are many missed touchdown opportunities because we forget to see the whole field, and understand the impact we can have on the final result by encouraging our colleagues to live up to their best potential.
Leadership lessons can seem more accessible with the lightness of a sports analogy, but stepping outside of your comfort zone isn’t any easier on the football field than it is in business. The core lesson remains the same – a great opportunity isn’t going to land in your hands or in your inbox if you aren’t engaged and working to improve every day.
To find more happiness at work, say yes more often, step out of your comfort zone and encourage your team to do the same.
Guest contribution from Maria Tedesco, President of Atlantic Union Bank
Author Bio:
Maria was named one of Most Powerful Women in Banking Team Award by American Banker in 2012 and 2017. In 2015, she was named one of the Most Powerful Women to Watch by American Banker. She received her M.B.A from Northeastern University and her B.S. from Ithaca College.
Melandee Jones Canady, Delivery Executive, AARP
Voices of Experience“I wish I had been more vocal early on; I was a doer quietly performing my work, until someone pulled me aside and said I needed to start broadcasting more of my achievements.” That helped raise her profile, which is paramount to success in any career.
A Career Based on All Paths Taken
The unifying thread behind Canady’s career is that she believed in seizing opportunities and seeing where they could take her. The result has been a successful marriage of technology and business skillsets, aligned toward making life easier for the customer.
An IT executive with 20 years of experience, she follows in the footsteps of her father, who sparked her interest when he would discuss his work with data centers and mainframes at the dinner table. She studied law and technology, and subsequent internships at IBM, Lockheed Martin and Allstate solidified her interest in technology, while opening her eyes to all the different opportunities in the field.
She started her career with Enovia , which had a rotation program that exposed her to a wide variety of skills, from client/server development to software testing. It was testing where she discovered “that she was great at breaking things and handing them off for someone else to fix them.” Eventually she left for the world of consulting, then worked on an international project for a reinsurance company and finally settled into financial services.
Canady joined Ally Bank, where she was impressed with the innovative ideas they were launching. She was part of its rebrand as a direct bank, where she was able to use her skills to create seamless and secure technology, which she realized was the only chance to make an impression on customers when there’s no brick-and-mortar presence. While there she earned her MBA and moved from systems analysis to a business-oriented role that bolstered her understanding of voice of the customer as she partnered to find out their needs and desired outcomes.
Soon she was recruited by a consulting company to support TIAA (then TIAA-CREF) which also wanted to set up a direct bank, as she was one of the few with the skillset. Eventually she decided to move to Washington, D.C., and worked with Deloitte Consulting specializing in systems integration, which she says was among her most satisfying work stints, given the many new experiences and opportunities to adapt what she had learned over the years in a client-facing role.
Almost four years ago, she was recruited to AARP where she interfaces between the technology departments and business partners to bridge gaps. “Working for an association gives you a fascinating view into how you can serve your 37+ million members, compared with working for shareholders,” she says, adding that it perfectly combines her background in voice of the customer and business outcomes as she serves its members and the community at large.
Today she is helping launch programs around artificial intelligence (AI), specifically working on the first level of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to help make AARP more efficient. “With almost 38 million members and only 2,400 employees, it’s a puzzle to figure out how to support everything. RPA can automate rote tasks to allow staff to work on more exciting projects,” Canady explains.
While she’s had a number of satisfying professional experiences, she also counts among her achievements some of the programs she’s been involved with outside of work, such as testing software with the United Nations, along with a wide variety of mentoring and training efforts she’s helped with, including both formal and informal affinity groups.
One that she has particularly enjoyed is Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA), along with a Women in Technology group set up by her former boss at AARP. “As a female CIO, her goal was to show how others can follow in her path, which has opened doors and created conversations that otherwise wouldn’t have happened,” she says.
Helping Others Grow
And that often leads her to give advice to younger professionals. One of the first things Canady tells them is that it’s OK to stand out. “I’ve been on numerous teams where I’m the only woman, the only African American, or even the only American.” She finds there is still a persistent perception of what a “technologist” looks like. “People expect you to look a certain way or have a certain background, so I work to dispel that myth and emphasize we are all different,” she says. And she adds, that’s important for business success, too, since the more diverse teams are, the better the outcomes.
She also thinks it’s important for women to realize that career pivots are not just normal, they are often better. “It’s fine to remember what you wanted when you were first starting, but it’s wise to realize that your end game might change—and it might end up even better than you expected. The key to that is perseverance: Don’t let others discourage you; if there’s an assignment you want, raise your hand,” she says.
With her husband and two small children—a two-and-a-half year old daughter and nine-month-old son—Canady stays busy on the homefront, traveling and just being together. But she still finds time to give back, participating in a Giving Circle where they pool money to make more of an impact for local charities, and as a member of the Junior League.
Happy Presidents Day: 10 “How to” Career Articles
News, Next LevelIn the meantime, here is a selection of our favorite “how to” career articles. Career articles regarding “how to” never get old! Here are 5 picks that our readers liked most and have some of the highest readership figures over our thirteen years of bringing you the information that matters regarding how to navigate to the next level, beat the office blues and break your own glass ceiling:
Some were written a while ago but remain solid in their advice and relevancy. Enjoy and see you next week!
1.How to Survive a Re-Org and keep your career on track
2. Negotiation Tactics to close the gender wage gap
3. What to do when you feel undervalued at work?
4. Are you an “insecure overachiever?” stop the imposter syndrome
5. Who is on your Board of Directors?
6. Get Promoted in 2020!
7. Negotiate More Vacation Days!
8. Avoid Burnout with this article and this one too.
9. How and When to find a new job.
10. Use the Lattice not the ladder in your career.
Coaching is the ultimate career secret weapon and is where the rubber meets the road since advice is generic but coaching is specific to who you are and where you are.
If you want to be coached as a soon to be or a new leader or even just want to be even more excellent than you are today, then get in touch with Nicki (nicki@theglasshammer.com) for a free exploratory chat to see if leadership or executive or career coaching is for you. Write coaching in the title of the email so you dont get lost in the pile.
We have a number of excellent associate coaches ( all Columbia University qualified) who can be matched with you, including Nicki who is also an organizational psychologist, looking at the systemic as well as the individual career enablers and de-railers.
Enjoy the week!