Catalyst research shows that workplaces where manliness is “policed” and hypercompetitive behaviors are encouraged can take a negative toll on men’s emotional and mental health. This in turn impacts the organization’s overall health, increasing turnover and quiet quitting.

The challenge: Men are under immense pressure to be tough, confident, and aggressive at work — at the expense of other traits and behaviors.¹

Why is this happening?
Masculine stereotypes set the expectation that men are stoic, competitive, and take risks, which creates a narrow set of acceptable behaviors. The fear of losing status from not conforming leads to masculine anxiety, which is the distress men feel when they don’t think they’re living up to society’s rigid standards of masculinity.²

How big is this issue?
Workplaces with high levels of masculine stereotypes can also contribute to burnout, sleep issues, and poor psychological well-being. Men want change ─ 87% of men would prefer to work in environments that allow them to express empathy and kindness.³

Take action

Recognizing International Men’s Day can be a positive first step for HR and DEI leaders looking to create inclusive environments that promote mental well-being and equality for everyone. Here are three actions to take:

1. Promote mental health resources
   Use this day to highlight challenges men face and share the mental health resources and benefits available. Invite ERGs and other teams to have open discussions about mental health and to normalize seeking help.
2. Challenge harmful gender stereotypes and behaviors
   Share this research with leaders and host conversations that explore healthy examples of masculinity and inclusive behavior. Invite everyone to use this day to challenge stereotypes and encourage senior leaders to tackle negative workplace climates head-on.
3. Promote gender partnership
   Gender partnership is when people of all genders work together to create a more inclusive culture that benefits everyone. Discussion groups, cross-gender mentorship programs, cross-ERG events, and gender partnership trainings are all ways to begin to shift workplace norms.

Endnotes

1. DiMuccio, S. H., Yost, M. R., & Helweg-Larsen, M. (2017). A qualitative analysis of perceptions of precarious manhood in US and Danish men. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 18(4), 331–340; Cejka, M. A. & Eagly, A. H. (1999). Gender-stereotypic images of occupations correspond to the sex segregation of employment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(4), 413-423; Prentice, D. A. & Carranza, E. (2002). What women and men should be, shouldn’t be, are allowed to be, and don’t have to be: The contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26(4), 269-281; Vandello, J. A. & Bosson, J. K. (2012). Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of theory and research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 14(2), 101-113.
2. DiMuccio, S., Sattari, N., Shaffer, E., & Cline, J. (2021). Masculine anxiety and interrupting sexism at work. Catalyst.
3. Brassel, S. (2024). How to reduce hostile, sexist behavior in frontline workplace. workplaces. Catalyst

The post Men’s mental health is suffering at work appeared first on Catalyst.

Whatever the general public may think of AI, businesses are on board, seeing the great potential of AI for optimizing existing systems and creating new ones. AI is no longer viewed as simply an option for most industries, but as an inevitability.

As businesses with the agility and budgets lead the charge on the development and implementation of AI, and others begin to follow, it can be easy to move at the speed of innovation without viewing AI through a human lens. In this spirit, panelists convened at the 2024 Catalyst Honours in Toronto on 7 October 2024 to discuss “Shaping an Inclusive Future Through Generative AI.”

Kathleen Taylor, Chair, Element Fleet Management, Altas Partners, and The Hospital for Sick Children, spoke about the portfolio of organizations she works with, saying they are generally optimistic about an AI-enhanced future of work. “There’s such enormous opportunity associated with all of this,” she said.

This sentiment was echoed by discussion moderator David Morgenstern, President, Accenture Canada, who said, “We published a paper at Microsoft this spring that said even traditional Canadian adoption [of AI] would add the equivalent of an insurance or retail sector to Canada.” That translates to an annual economic windfall of $180 billion in labor productivity gains by 2030.

AI can assist in innovation for good

Panelists then shifted their focus to implementation. Jennifer Freeman, CEO of PeaceGeeks,  highlighted AI’s impact on bridging the gaps between users and government. “We’re really utilizing AI in our digital tools as an equalizer,” she said.

For immigrants, there are many barriers (like language and technology) to accessing resources. PeaceGeeks partnered with Accenture to create an AI virtual career coaching platform that can help people practice interviewing, soft skills, and job matching for permanent residency.

As of 7 October 2024, the platform, which rolled out in June, has already had over 100,000 unique users.

AI can perpetuate current biases

Panelists agreed that a healthy dose of caution is needed when creating platforms that rely on AI. Pamela Pelletier, Country Leader & Managing Director, Canada, Dell Technologies, said, “It’s all about the data. Garbage in, garbage out. If you have data that is skewed or that is biased, then you’re going to have a problem.”

She gave the example of AI chatbots, which can “hallucinate”. “Where does ChatGPT get their information from? Twitter, whatever, all these places. So, the data itself is potentially biased.”

Aneela Zaib, Founder & CEO, emergiTEL, said, “The fact is that the LLM (large language model) models that we have on our hands currently, we don’t know how they’re trained or which data they are trained on.”

AI must be fed the right data

What can be done to combat this issue? How can we prevent the same blind spots in the future?

Zaib is already working on solutions. “One of the ways we have tried to overcome [this] is we have fine-tuned these models based on the dataset that are inclusive in nature already. So, when you give a dataset to this tool which is already inclusive and you define set prompts (and there’s a lot of detail…that we can go crazy over), the bottom line is that you have to be very careful in using these systems, giving them the guardrails, and at the same time auditing these systems at the end with the results that you are getting.”

Her company’s tools deliver diverse job candidates to client companies, and AI is part of those tools. When they audit the results that AI delivers, if they find a job or a skillset that isn’t being filled by candidates in certain communities, they analyze those results, fine-tune them, and run the AI model again. Ongoing stewardship of these AI tools and models is part of the process, especially when the work is so important. Zaib said, “Diversity is a practice that we have to do every day.”

DEI and AI can work together

Pelletier echoed this sentiment, saying, “We have the opportunity with the tech that exists now to actually bring people in who have been historically forgotten or left behind.”

Organizations that use AI must do their part. Pelletier said, “As an organization, we have the responsibility when we’re training models to have that data reflect the values we have as an organization. So, it is really important that we take that data and we curate the data to reflect those values… and then we’ll have a very positive outcome.”

She added that DEI and AI can and should work together to further humanity’s best interests. “We need to have our DE&I representation, those folks, at the table at the beginning as we implement the AI projects. And they need to have the ability or authority to hit that pause button or that stop button. If one were analyzing the data, if something is inappropriate, they can pause that and go and correct it,” she said.

Be intentional with AI

As organizations rush to add AI to various aspects of their businesses, it’s important to take the time to do it correctly. If a company doesn’t have high customer service traffic, it probably doesn’t need an AI chatbot. If a company has a large marketing department, it probably doesn’t need to train AI to write articles. And if a company cares deeply about its values, it shouldn’t license an LLM trained on biased datasets.

Taylor summed it up perfectly: “We can make this work, as long as we’re building capably, testing well, utilizing but then coming back around and making sure that what comes out the other end is exactly the outcome we would have hoped for, whether that’s a new recruit, a system that’s delivering a new customer offering, whatever it may be.”

Want to know about next year’s Catalyst Honours? Sign up now and we’ll email you when registration opens.

The post Global CEOs share insights on AI implementation appeared first on Catalyst.

On September 18, 2024, during Hispanic Heritage Month, Catalyst gathered a panel of experts for a webinar “Let’s Hit the Accelerator for Latine Women in the Workplace.” Here are some highlights from the engaging discuss about effective strategies to not only attract Latina talent but also to create inclusive environments that support their long-term success and advancement.

Concentrate on Culture

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” says Eddie Coronado, Founder Upskill HR, when discussing how to recruit Latine talent. “It really starts with culture…If your company does not have a values or mission statement that aligns with their identity, you’re less likely to attract that type of people into your organization. And so it’s really important before you even try to come up with any recruitment strategies that you align internally, that your organization is building an inclusive environment from the top down.”

Employ recruitment strategies.

“While culture does eat strategy for breakfast..I think strategy is very important and I think the culture builds off of that,” says Janet Sandoval Director, Global Corporate Social Responsibility Avery Dennison. “We try to present a pool of screened and qualified candidates to be considered to interview and out of those candidates, we have at least 50% female. And for North America, that’s at least one candidate that identifies Hispanic or Latinx and one candidate that identifies as Black / African American.”

Another way to increase a company’s talent pipeline is “partnering with organizations that have big pools of Latine talent,” Coronado says.

Build inclusion into the fabric of your organization.

Having strategies, programs, and policies like anti-bias training are important but “make sure they’re not just lip service,” cautions Ana Jaramillo, DEI Engagement Specialist Moneris. “It’s making sure that you have middle management buy in. It’s making sure that there are not silos or pockets of the organization that are not being authentic to those values and to those strategies of inclusion,” she says. Jaramillo points to Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and sponsorships and mentorships as being valuable resources and strategies to foster inclusion.

Recognize and address barriers

“We’re taught to not toot your own horn,” Sandoval says about a cultural barrier to success that some Latine women face. Jaramillo shared a saying that she says many Latine women hear throughout their lives: “’Calladita te miras mas bonita,’ which means like ‘If you’re quiet, you’re prettier,’” and says “how much that permeates the way that you continue to behave even within the corporate context.”

She suggests that a way to address this reticence to self-advocate is to ask managers to step in. “Sometimes you need an open offer. Sometimes you need leadership to tap your shoulder,” she says.

Another barrier to success is a lack of opportunities, Jaramillo says, referring to access to educational and networking opportunities and to role models. “How many of us are the first in many ways?” she asks. That’s where mentorship and sponsorship can make a difference. However, our panelists cautioned leaders to recognize the differences in these roles and to set both parties up for success by educating them about expectations and best practices.

Sandoval brought up the point that “Latine women have a lot of disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, and so what policies and practices do you have in place to help people navigate that? Do you have any programs for returnship?”

Invest in Talent.

To prevent the high cost of replacing Latine women talent, Sandoval advises to “continuously invest in their growth … imagine if it is the glass cliff, these are senior level positions that you’re then having to replace because maybe you didn’t give that person a raise, maybe you didn’t provide that person executive coaching or additional support or maybe they got so tired of being the only and fighting for having a voice in in those C- suite meetings that they decided to become a consultant or an entrepreneur.”

Take Action

Latine women face numerous barriers to workplace success, but organizations can take steps to attract and retain Latine talent.

• Have a clear and inclusive mission statement to attract potential candidates.
• Understand unconscious bias and its impact and address internal, interpersonal, and organizational biases.
• Employ recruitment strategies like partnering with select organizations and prescreening applicants for interviews to include candidates from historically marginalized communities.
• Build a supportive company culture that values diverse perspectives and experiences
  through resources like ERGs.
• Recognize and address barriers to success by encouraging leaders to guide Latine women forward.
• Invest in talent by providing support throughout employees’ careers such as executive training, mentorship, and sponsorship.
• Avoid tokenism by ensuring that all levels of leadership have a presence at programs and events.

To learn more about proven DEI training programs and strategies, click here.

The post Strategies to support Latine women in the workplace appeared first on Catalyst.

With LGBTQ+ employees frequently reporting lower levels of psychological safety and belonging across a range of measures than their non-LGBTQ+ colleagues, business leaders have to commit to a multi-pronged approach to inclusion for the entire calendar — not just during Pride month. This means implementing genuine DEI policies, modeling inclusion at the highest levels of leadership, and utilizing every tool at their disposal to build out a holistic suite of inclusive programs and policies.

LGBTQ+-focused Employee Resource Groups are frequently among the oldest and most robust ERGs at any given organization. This uniquely positions them to take the work of employee engagement to the next level. Organizations can leverage advanced intersectional ERGs to catapult employee belonging and engagement into a new era.

Join our panel of experts for Pride Month to discuss:

• The complex history of Pride Month and LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion in the workplace
• Strategies for moving ERGs from the intermediate stage to the advanced stage
• Best practices for leveraging the unique position of ERGs to advance business priorities that go hand-in-hand with employee belonging

For questions, please contact catalystevents@catalyst.org.

Catalyst is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

The post Unity in Diversity: Building Intersectional LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Groups for Women appeared first on Catalyst.

In the modern workplace, creating environments that are equipped to support neurodiverse women and employees with disabilities isn’t just a moral necessity — it’s a competitive advantage. The unemployment rate for women with disabilities consistently trends nearly twice as high as that of women without disabilities, and only about 25 percent of employees say their company prioritizes disability in its DEI efforts.

Building workplaces that are accessible for all not only opens your talent pool to a wider population of qualified candidates, but it also can lead to profound improvements in organizational efficiency. Preliminary data from Hewlett Packard Enterprise suggests that neurodiverse teams are 30% more productive than other teams.

Join our panel of experts to discuss:

• Misunderstood and overlooked challenges that women with disabilities face at work and in the hiring processes
• Why businesses that prioritize neurodiversity and accessibility as key pillars of their DEI strategy outperform their competitors
• Best practices from organizations leading the charge for employees with disabilities

Note: Please log in to the website with your Catalyst Supporter organization email to access registration. If you are NOT a Catalyst Supporter, please email us to proceed with payment and registration. For questions, please contact catalystevents@catalyst.org.

Catalyst is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

The post Embracing Diversity: Creating Accessible Workplaces for All Women’s Minds and Bodies appeared first on Catalyst.

Black women face unique challenges in the workplace that can severely impact their health and wellness, both physical and mental. Catalyst research has found that over half of Black women report feeling “on guard” at work, which can lead to what we call the Emotional Tax. This is when feeling different from peers in the workplace because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity affects health, well-being, and the ability to thrive at work.

Prioritizing the health and wellness of Black women employees is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic business decision. Companies that actively support the well-being of their Black women employees experience higher retention rates, increased productivity, and a more inclusive work culture. By fostering an environment where Black women feel valued and supported, businesses can unlock the full potential of their talent pool and drive innovation and success. Furthermore, promoting diversity and inclusion has been shown to enhance company reputation and attract top talent across all demographics.

Join our panel of experts for Black History Month to discuss:

• How Emotional Tax shows up in the workplace, both quietly and overtly
• How leaders can leverage Catalyst’s Listen, Learn, Link up, Lead model to better support their Black women employees
• Best practices from industry leaders for creating empowering and successful workplaces that work for Black women

For questions, please contact catalystevents@catalyst.org.

Catalyst is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

The post Beyond the Desk: Health and Wellness for Black Women at Work appeared first on Catalyst.

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 led to calls for racial equity at work, organizations eager to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion hired more Black women into leadership positions. After decades of facing barriers to advancement and leadership — a concrete ceiling — it seemed like Black women were finally making progress. But many of them were set up to fail and placed in unstable positions in organizations that were floundering. These experiences are characteristic of the glass cliff, a phenomenon where women and people of color are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions during periods of organizational crisis compared to those of stability and growth.

Leading an organization through a time of crisis is a difficult job for any leader, but Black women face additional burdens navigating (in)visibility, the pressure to perform and intersectional stereotypes,

Black women in leadership roles contend with both hypervisibility and invisibility. As studies show, they are penalized more harshly for failures, and their performance is scrutinized more than others. This is especially true when Black women are the first of their race and/or gender to be in a leadership role. There is an increased pressure to perform because of how it could reflect on other people like them. At the same time, Black women leaders deal with invisibility and must work harder to be seen and taken seriously as a leader because they do not match the prototype of the white male leader. This can make it more difficult for them to gain respect, buy-in, and support from their peers and subordinates.

Additionally, because of racial and gender stereotypes such as the “strong Black woman” and phrases like “Black girl magic,” two tropes that portray Black women as uncharacteristically strong and resilient, they may be expected to take on impossible tasks without the support and resources they need to succeed. Given the additional barriers that Black women leaders face, many work twice as hard to be successful, sacrificing their mental health and experiencing increased stress and burnout.

What causes the glass cliff?

The causes of the glass cliff are complex and varied, but these are two reasons that stand out: status quo bias and stereotypes about gender and leadership.

Status quo bias. When an organization is in crisis, leaders want to signal a change from the status quo and use the appointment of a “new kind” of leader (e.g. a non-white man) as a symbolic demonstration of that change. In support of this theory, researchers conducted an experiment and found that the glass cliff effect only surfaced when a company was described as historically male-led. When the company was described as historically led by women, the glass cliff disappeared.

Stereotypes about gender and leadership. It’s been well documented that people tend to associate stereotypically masculine traits, such as assertiveness and independence, with leadership more so than stereotypically feminine traits like cooperation and caring — a phenomenon called “think manager-think male.” Interestingly, research also shows a “think crisis-think female” phenomenon where leaders with stereotypically feminine traits are seen as more suitable to lead an organization in crisis. This sets women up to be appointed to glass cliff positions.

How can organizations prevent the glass cliff?

Organizations can mitigate the glass cliff phenomenon and give Black women and employees from other marginalized groups a fair chance to succeed in leadership positions. They must be willing to do three things: make a long-term commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion through succession planning, address barriers and biases in hiring, development and promotion, and create accountability structures within the organization.

Develop inclusive succession planning. Future-thinking companies create a strategy to identify and develop high-potential talent to take on leadership positions when they become vacant. Organizations that do not have a succession plan are most at risk for perpetuating the glass cliff because they must make a quick decision to fill a role with little planning and preparation — a perfect recipe for bias.

Even when companies have succession plans, failure to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion into the process can perpetuate barriers and inequality that keep women and people of color from advancing into leadership positions. An inclusive succession plan recognizes the need for a diverse and dynamic workforce and actively works to identify and develop high-potential talent from marginalized groups. It seeks to remove barriers to advancement and provide support through leadership development programs and access to sponsors and mentors.

Ultimately, this planning builds an intentionally diverse pipeline of talent to choose from when a leadership position becomes available, helping organizations avoid subjecting Black women to the glass cliff, make consistent progress toward their diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and create smoother transitions between leadership.

Root out bias from hiring, performance appraisals and promotion processes. Evaluation processes such as hiring, performance appraisals and promotion are susceptible to bias that can disadvantage people from marginalized backgrounds. So, it is important to create clear guidelines for how to evaluate others. The more subjectivity there is in the evaluation process, the greater chance there is of bias, so it’s key to base decisions on objective, measurable and job-relevant competencies and criteria.

For hiring, evaluators can use structured interviewing, a human resources tool where candidates are all asked the same competency-based questions and then rated using a rubric to assess their performance on each competency. Bias can also be present during the performance appraisal process. Studies show differences in the amount and quality of performance feedback that employees from marginalized groups receive. Black women in particular receive the least amount of quality feedback compared to other groups.

Equip managers with the skills they need to be objective by hosting training on how to evaluate performance and give high-quality feedback that is clear, actionable and focused on behaviors instead of personality traits. Creating bias-free evaluation processes can help organizations mitigate the glass cliff by shutting down stereotypes and bias.

Measure and track progress. As the saying goes, what gets measured gets managed. Collecting data and tracking progress is also a great way to create accountability and transparency for diversity, equity and inclusion goals, both of which are essential for success.

It’s important to assess the disparity between demographic groups across all facets of the employee life cycle so you can evaluate what is working and what is not. For example, in analyzing performance appraisal and promotion data, it is important to consider whether rates of promotion are similar across demographic groups and whether the quality and amount of feedback is similar. Take it a step further and take an intersectional approach to the data, considering whether there may be disparities across more than one axis of identity.  Measuring and tracking progress can help to proactively identify challenges that could lead to a glass cliff scenario.

The bottom line

Restricting Black women’s advancement opportunities to times of poor organizational performance is not a sustainable business or diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Organizations play a crucial role in ensuring that Black women have access to the same opportunities for development, advancement and leadership as white men. The glass cliff is not inevitable. We can make it an outdated notion.

The post Black women still face a glass cliff, but fixing workplace systems can change that appeared first on Catalyst.

Introducing: Season 1, episode 2, of the Catalyst podcast, Breaking with Tradition: It’s Not All Doom & Gloom: State of DEI.

It’s easy to become disheartened by the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movements in the workplace. It’s a time of inflamed political rhetoric and multiple overlapping global crises that threaten to roll back the clock on our efforts to make more equitable work environments for women.

On this episode of Breaking with Tradition, we’re reminded of words from Felice Schwartz as she looked at the radical changes she saw in her lifetime: “We can’t go on the way we have been—living new lives in the old patterns.”

What is the state of DEI in 2024? Is it all doom and gloom, or is there reason to hope for “new patterns” emerging? Our host Erin is flying solo this week and sitting down with Ruchika Tulshyan, expert, speaker and author on DEI and founder and CEO of Candour to discuss her predictions for our work this year and beyond.

Our conversation will tackle some of the biggest Future of Work trends impacting women today. Spoiler alert: There’s a lot to be excited about!

Host and guest

Erin Souza-Rezendes, Vice President, Global Communications, Catalyst

LinkedIn | Bio

Ruchika Tulshyan is the best-selling author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work (MIT Press). The book was described as “transformative” by Dr. Brené Brown. She is working on her next book: “Uncompete: Dismantling a Competition Mindset to Unlock Liberation, Opportunity, and Peace” (Viking Books).

Ruchika is also the founder of Candour, an inclusion strategy practice. A former international business journalist, Ruchika is a regular contributor to The New York Times and Harvard Business Review and a recognized media commentator on workplace culture.

LinkedIn | Website

In this episode

• 1:35 | About Ruchika. Who is Ruchika Tulshyan and what is her approach to DEI?
• 6:01 | Ouch, 2024. It’s been rough. Are the DEI doom and gloom headlines true? Ruchika weighs in.
• 12:57 | What’s your advice? How do we shore ourselves up during these challenging times?
• 18:45 | Imposter syndrome is a systemic issue. Ruchika shares how we can make systems-level change.
• 25:35 | What does the future of work look like? Will inclusivity be the norm?
• 30:57 | Sneak Peek. The Catalyst community gets a sneak peek into Ruchika’s next book

Favorite moments

• 1:51 | Ruchika: I think of the work that I do or my approach to diversity, equity and inclusion as multi-faceted. So much of it is driven by various identities I have and hold throughout my life.
• 5:48 | Erin: I think it means so much to marry those two things and have both, the personal storytelling and the receipts of the research to uncover what is happening in workplaces around the world, particularly for women.
• 8:06 | Ruchika: I’d say the most important part of this is that a lot of these attacks are not new. They’re not using, they might be using new language, they might be using different packaging around it.
• 8:21 | Ruchika: Ten years ago, when I was in the technology industry, at that time, even using the words diversity, equity and inclusion were basically completely new.
• 9:35 | Ruchika: I think actually think now we’ve come to a place now where it’s [microaggressions] so widely understood, we can actually update it to say microaggressions are not that micro. They actually have a very macro impact on people in their lives, on their careers.
• 10:35 | Ruchika: Some part of this, I think is also the zero-sum thinking that I think a lot of people and leaders and organizations operate with. Like this idea of winner takes all.
• 11:45 | Erin: If the workplace is a place where women feel like they can show up authentically, where they’re going to experience inclusion, whatever that means to them, however that feels to them and be able to succeed on their terms, whatever that means to them. Then that’s good for everybody.
• 22:49 | Ruchika: Once you start to unpack the systemic issues at play it because really hard to keep saying or keep believing that it is an internal issue [imposter syndrome] that you are struggling with.
• 23:47 | Ruchika: How do you win? Until you stop taking it [imposter syndrome] on as an internal burden?
• 24:02 | Ruchika: We need to widen the table. We need to show different styles of leadership. We need to show that someone who pounds her fist, especially a woman who pounds her fist or is just her personality is such, that her leadership style is to be you know, strong, commanding, domineering, etc. is just as acceptable as someone who identifies as an introvert who’s really quiet, who leads sort of in a different way.
• 26:22 | Ruchika: Gender inequity isn’t necessarily men doing inequity to women. Some of the most challenging and concerning examples of gender bias I’ve seen in the workplace has been from women upholding very patriarchal very gender-biased norms against other women.
• 26:52 | Ruchika: I think some of the backlash is the idea of like we’re separating people out into groups, we’re creating more divisions, rather than understanding that systemic biases impact everyone regardless of their identity.
• 28:51 | Ruchika: I think these examples of people being able to really be their full, authentic selves is the type of future of work that I really want us to see.
• 29:39 | Ruchika: To hear from, you know white men to say to me, I identify as an introvert. I don’t like speaking up at meetings. And, you know, being so commanding and domineering, it’s expected of the workplace that I work at. And since we’ve sort of been working on inclusion much more thoughtfully and intentionally, I feel like I can bring my more quiet, more introverted self to meetings and to my leadership style.
• 23:54 | Ruchika: If we are truly going to rise, if we’re truly going to create this future where everyone wins, we need to stop believing and stop only focusing on the gains that we can make as individuals or just our own community.
• 34:22 I Erin: I can think of times in you know, what I would consider fairly inclusive workspaces, being told by bosses like, oh you know, watch out, watch out for her kind of thing. And thinking 20 years ago, that doesn’t seem right to me.
• 35:14 | Ruchika: A lot of what we were conditioned with, a lot of the norms, we were told about the workplace, about society don’t hold true anymore.
• 35:16 | Ruchika: Just because we’ve done things a certain way, now that we know better we don’t have to continue in that way.
• 36:26 | Ruchika: The opportunity is there, but we have to imagine it.

Mentioned on the Pod

• HBR: https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome
• Inclusion on Purpose
• HBR: https://hbr.org/2023/04/how-colorism-affects-women-at-work
• MIT: Dr. Chester Pierce, psychologist
• HBR: https://hbr.org/2022/03/we-need-to-retire-the-term-microaggressions
• Fortune: https://fortune.com/2024/06/04/fortune-500-companies-women-ceos-2024/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-my-next-book-uncompete-ruchika-tulshyan/
• Unlocking Us with Brene Brown: https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-ashley-c-ford-on-storytelling-truth-telling-and-liberation/

Research you can use

• What’s really causing the DEI backlash and how to fix it
• 33 ways to address the backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion
• 7 facts that prove America Ferrera’s speech in Barbie is true
• Erskine, S., Brassel, S., & Robotham, K. (2023). Exposé of women’s workplace experiences challenges antiracist leaders to step up. Catalyst.
• Is DEI authentic? Caroline Wanga says we need a reframe
• The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership (Infographic)

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How to cite this product: Flip the script: Gender stereotypes in the workplace – men. (2024). Catalyst.

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