IWD 2022: Breaking the Bias
On this International Women’s Day, we pledge our ongoing commitment to celebrating women’s excellence in a world where gender bias still inhibits women’s growth on a daily basis. Gender bias is so ingrained and pervasive in our lives that we may not notice we are acting from gendered assumptions. Yet, according to a 2020 UN study on Gender Norms, 9 out of 10 people hold a bias against women. We’ve put together a small list of assumptions that may sound familiar, and, if they do, challenge you to take one action today, to help forge equality in our society.
Invisible Labour: Our society assumes it is normal for women to undertake a huge amount of invisible labour on top of their financial income. If women were paid for the invisible labour in their homes, such as cleaning, private cheffing, PA and admin roles, childcare, chauffeuring, and life coach services on top of their day to day , they would be paid a whopping £176,667 extra a year.
Pet Names: We are more comfortable calling women by pet names, than we are men, the effects of which can be infantilising. In a survey of qualified lawyers, 29% of female respondents and less than 1% of male respondents report personally experiencing being addressed by names like “honey” or “sweetie” by male lawyers.
Parental Leave Bias: As of 2021, only 2% of families take up Shared Parental Leave, which allows eligible parents to split maternity leave, with the intention that parenting responsibilities are equally split. Many factors such as unequal pay come into the small uptake, but the biggest factor is the assumption that women are the natural caregivers. Companies can help by being vocal in accommodating flexible working patterns for both parents to work around childcare arrangements, to prevent those feeling uncomfortable requesting something different to the norm.
Gendered Role Models: About half of the world’s men and women feel that men make better political leaders, and over 40 percent feel that men make better business executives. However, this can be attributed simply to us not taking time to celebrate female role models in these fields. For example, in New Zealand, who has a female prime minister, 75% of the country feel that women make better political leaders.
A Woman’s Appearance: As a society, we are much more comfortable commenting on women’s appearance as opposed to a man’s. In 2021, the era of the workplace video call, more than a third of women were asked to put on more make-up for video calls while working from home – while over a quarter have been asked to dress more “provocatively”. This gives the impression women are valued based on their appearance instead of the issues they discuss.
These are just a select few examples of the bias that women face, but there are countless more. This International Women’s Day, you can help forge a gender equal world by maintaining and gender equal mindset and challenging the gender stereotypes and biases that women still face daily. We hope you join us in celebrating the excellence and achievements of women around you in an unequal world. Together we can #breakthebias
