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What We Can Do to Collectively Achieve Gender Equity

Gender equity is best defined as respecting all individuals without any discrimination, irrespective of gender. It also includes tackling gender inequalities which restrict the abilities of people to get access to opportunities for better education, economic opportunities, and health on the basis of gender.

Implementing gender equality in the workplace is not only about ensuring higher diversity and inclusion, but also ensuring equal opportunities through fostering an inclusive work environment and taking collective action to address gender gaps at work. 

Challenging Gender Stereotypes

Ensuring gender equity at the workplace is only possible through challenging gender stereotypes. Here are some points worth noting: 

• Traditional gender stereotypes are still present across many organisations for blocking, hindering, and slowing the progress of women. 
• There are five specific kinds of biases that should be eliminated in order to ensure equal opportunities for women. These include negative biases, agentic biases, benevolent biases, self-limiting biases, and motherhood biases. 
• Negative stereotypes, including perceptions of women being unsuitable for competitive, hardcore, and high-pressure leadership duties are harmful. Consistently judging women is another issue. 
• Many people exhibiting such behavioral tendencies are not always conscious about behaving in a discriminatory manner towards women. However, most of us function with deep-rooted sociological and psychological gender biases. 
• When negative gender stereotypes are held by managers and supervisors along with people in positions of leadership, it naturally leads to lower expectations of potential and capabilities for women as compared to men. 
• Gender sensitisation should start right from the top, including organisational decision-makers in order to challenge and eliminate such stereotypes. 
• An acknowledgement of the fact that women deserve equal opportunities and an inclusive work environment is the best way to start. 
• Collective action can be encouraged through community training, sensitisation, and awareness sessions. Community-based training and intervention for men for healthy masculinities, lower gender-based discrimination and violence, and a better understanding of the benefits of gender equity is crucial. 
• Companies can also change perceptions regarding caregiving through offering paternity and father-based leave. 
• Male and female role models and leaders can be engaged for scaling up efforts towards achieving gender equality. 

Ending Violence Against Women

Ending violence against women is a giant leap towards gender equity and ensuring a healthy environment for everyone. Here are the key aspects to be kept in mind: 

• Violence against women is a massive violation of human rights. 
• Global conflicts, crises, and emergencies have further led to crimes and violence against women. 
• Reductions can be achieved at scale through suitable awareness, advocacy, activism, and pro-active Governmental interventions. This should be combined with coordinated actions throughout the financial, justice, health, and other key sectors. 
• Everyone has a role in ending violence against women. Ignoring taboos and speaking out is crucial along with offering help to every woman in need. 
• Survivors and activists should have a strong foundation of organisational, social, and community support. Their voices should be heard and their stories told widely. Dialogue spaces should be built digitally and physically alike. 
• Violence against women can be sexual, physical, or even emotional along with being offline/online and public/private. We should all learn more about the kinds of violence and watch out for signs of abuse. 
• Sexual harassment should be called out, with strong legal and organisational policies to punish offenders. 
• There should be efforts made to challenge common masculine beliefs and offer financial assistance to organisations for women. 
• Powerful laws and collective action from all societal stakeholders are vital to end violence against women.

 Empowering Women in Leadership

Empowering more women will positively impact overall economic growth in any country. Here are some points that may be noted in this regard: 

• It is crucial to remember that women are the backbone for any community and society. They not only contribute to the economy in multiple ways, but are also robust social change-agents. 
• Women empowerment should focus on ensuring equal rights, acceptance, opportunities, social standing, advancement options, and community support, along with justice. 
• Political, economic, and social empowerment of women should be key themes. 
• Companies should arrange leadership and community development initiatives to empower more women. 
• Women should have safe spaces to speak out against gender discrimination, while getting all necessary support and mentoring to help them progress and advance their lives and careers. 
• Organisational sustainability is shaped to a large extent through gender equality and inclusivity. Hence, companies should empower women leaders while enabling them to take decisions. 
• Women should get more opportunities at every level, including return-to-work and post-childbirth workforce transition initiatives. 
• Female entrepreneurship should be encouraged both financially and emotionally. 
• There should be collective action at the Government-level to eliminate unpaid labor. 
• Women should receive suitable entrepreneurial and professional guidance. 
• Companies should build more diverse leadership teams and boards, along with building a culture that emphasises on a sense of belonging rather than thinking of gender. 
• Onboarding procedures should be inclusive and jobs should be molded to candidates and not the other way round. 

These efforts, even if suitably executed, will only be a drop in the ocean. The truth is that we are still a long way off from basic gender equity and the concept of equal opportunities. The boy’s club or glass ceilings still prevail to an extent where we recognise and fete a few examples of those who break them/into them.

FAQs

What strategies can corporations adopt to close the gender pay gap and ensure equal compensation for all employees?

Corporations can adopt several strategies to close up the gender pay gap and ensure equal compensation. They should be transparent regarding income slabs, bonuses, and incentives. Men should be encouraged to take parental leave. 

Childcare help should be provided to both men and women. Remote working should be encouraged whenever necessary and of course, payment slabs should be solely on merit and job duties. 

What initiatives can companies implement to provide equal opportunities for career development and advancement for women?

Some of these initiatives include revamping onboarding processes to be more inclusive and tailoring jobs to fit candidate profiles without taking the opposite approach. Companies should make sure that both men and women have access to the same leadership development programs and build discrimination-free managerial/decision-making cultures. 

The ratio of men to women should be evaluated periodically while the working environment should be safe. Coaching and mentorship should be available for women without any discrimination. 

How can organisations create and enforce policies against gender-based discrimination and harassment?

Companies can create policies against gender-based discrimination and harassment through drawing from applicable legal statues. They should enforce these policies through offering helplines/options to reach out for reporting such cases. There should also be safe spaces, neutral and external conflict resolution and monitoring, law enforcement links and coordination, proper employee harassment and discrimination cells, and so on. 

How can we leverage technology and digital platforms to advance gender equity and bridge the digital gender divide?

Digital platforms and technology can be leveraged to form communities and groups for help and assistance, along with swift emergency outreach. They can be used to build safe spaces to document, record, and report grievances. They can be leveraged for swift coordination and supervision, courtesy of external authorities. Technology can also be used as a great leveler, with regard to helping women find equal opportunities for career growth within the organisation.