Why can't we get rid of gender disparity in the workplace?

Yinghui Liang
10 min readJan 13, 2024

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Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

This story is about introspection, reflection, and question on gender disparity in the workplace. It is nonetheless from a Chinese woman’s perspective. I stand from the vantage point of my own gender and ethnicity, and narrate what I went through and what I heard from my women peers’ stories.

Like many other women who enjoy fair treatment most of the time and have incredibly supportive mentors — both men and women, I feel immensely grateful for my career and achievement. Then it strikes me that feeling grateful for fair treatment is itself an issue. Being fairly treated should not be an unusual circumstance. All genders have a right to equality in the workplace.

We don’t care enough about genders in the workplace.

This is particularly so in Asia. By genders, I mean all genders, not just the traditional man/woman paradigm. Other than company's official DEI statement and the annual workplace anti-harassment and discrimination trainings, we rarely talk about genders openly in the workplace. Surely, women complain about their mistreatment with their sisterhood but never publicly to superiors and other colleagues. As a woman, I know too well the concerns and potential backlashes from voicing out. When women voice out differential treatment, they are often accused of being sensitive, emotional, difficult, insecure, jealousy , or playing the gender inequality card. Sometimes, your woman peers judge you for voicing out because your actions "embarrass" them and because they don't feel there is a problem.

Back in 1997, Psychologist John Jost found that the majority of women were not particularly aware of their status as an oppressed group and that women justified and accepted gender inequality as the norm. As far as I see, this remains largely true in contemporary times. We may not be aware of all the compromises that we have made and we keep making them. I have not yet seen the movie Barbie (2023) but I love this monologue written by Greta Gerwig and delivered by America Ferrera:

It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men’s bad behaviour, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.

You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault (Barbie, 2023).

This monologue speaks to my heart deeply, and I bet, to many women's. I have a workplace version:

If you want to succeed, you gotta be assertive but not too assertive to appear aggressive, smart but not too smart to make your superiors feel insecure, political but not too political to threaten your colleagues, feminine but not too feminine to look weak, beautiful but not too beautiful to arouse jealousy from your peers.

When woman underperforms or fails, people blame her for her personal attributes, e.g., being incompetent and weak, but seldom give a fair assessment on the resources and network support that she has. This is classic internal attribution. When woman succeeds, people attribute her success to external situation and context, e.g., tokenism — she was promoted because the company wanted to demonstrate its DEI initiatives; and luck — she was lucky that her boss liked her or that there was a vacancy and no better candidates were available, but hardly think about her hard work and talent. This is classic external attribution.

In a recent paper, Cheryan and Markus (2020) show that men and women often socialise differently. Women do not enjoy the same level of resources and social network support as their men counterparts. The authors suggest that there are deep-rooted masculine defaults in our workplaces and society:

Masculine default is a form of bias in which characteristics and behaviours associated with the male gender role are valued, rewarded, or regarded as standard, normal, neutral, or necessary aspects of a given cultural context (Cheryan & Markus, 2020)

These masculine defaults (e.g., assertiveness, confidence) may not appear as harmful or discriminatory towards women but they put women in a disadvantaged position. In fact, I think masculine defaults hurt men as well, even for white men — a seemingly advantaged group. They are put under the pressure of maintaining a dominant masculine ideal— strong, tough, powerful and successful. I don’t think all white men should or want to be like that. All genders should be comfortable to talk about their struggles, show their weakness, and behave as they like.

After all these years of diversity, equality and inclusion movement, why can't we get rid of gender disparity in the workplace? This is nonetheless an evolving question that is hard to fathom out definitive reasons. If I may, in all levels, we are limited and intimidated by our gender stereotypes, dominant gender ideologies, e.g., masculine defaults, and culture. I have more questions from my introspection and reflection than I set out for.

Am I the bad person who destroys harmony?

I fear of voicing out my concerns for inequality in the workplace because I was afraid to be labeled as a feminist. I experienced an identity threat. The feminist identity label, unfortunately, carries a negative connotation in the public discourse. People picture an angry, grumpy and man-hater image of feminist. This is certainly not true, but the image is unshakeable and terrifying.

Besides, there is the fear of offending upper management by challenging the status quo, by appearing to oppose to the company's current policy and by being "uncooperative". These are all taboos in the collective and patriarchal Asian cultures. You cannot be the one who destroys the harmony in a group.

And there is the peer pressure. Not all women want to change the status quo. This is a critical fact. Some women are proud of their status that they are popular in the men’s groups, making them feel special. They are very smart, tough and comfortable to work around sexism. I have heard many times from industry women:

Socialisation with clients involves flirting. Even if the jokes came off sexist, you shouldn't feel offended or think too much. Instead of complaining, you should work on your social skills and alcohol tolerance. And you should never offend the clients. They didn’t see you romantically. Don't think too highly of yourself. If you do feel uncomfortable, find ways to avoid the client but always maintain the relationship.

Chinese, probably most Asian, societies and culture value harmony. If you suffered, you sucked it and waited for the storm to pass. That’s the way to handle. You don’t fight against the storm or the status quo. You don't want to be the bad person who destroys harmony. I feel sad about writing this.

Should we bring our authentic self to work?

Voicing out your values, what you truly believe and what concerns you is being authentic. The fear of showing one's authentic self is another barrier forbidding us to care more about genders in the workplace. This leads to a much bigger question of whether being your authentic self is worth it in the workplace, where livelihood is at stake? I incline to say no, but this is just intuition. I guess it depends on context.

From my professional experiences, sometimes, one's authentic self would probably not be the best work self to present to clients, colleagues and managers. Let's say your true self is an introvert, whereas your work requires a client-facing aspect, where a sparkling personality is the norm and preferred. You love your job. Now do you want to fake a cheerful character? Unless you are lucky to work with people who value authenticity and thus your honest expression of yourself would be seen as genuine and likeable, you will be better off wearing a mask (metaphorically).

While these are just my observations in the workplace, a study about whether one should show authentic self during job interviews by Moore, Lee, Kim, and Cable(2017) confirm a similar result. The authors verify that for top candidates — those who are highly qualified for the job, being authentic could increase their chance of beating the competition and getting the job offer for the reason that their authentic self-representation is perceived as genuine and desirable. However, for not so qualified candidates, they will suffer if they show their authentic self because whatever they say may just reinforce the negative impression that's already formed. This means, if you see yourself as a long shot to a position, you may be better off concealing your true self. As the authors state and it's commonly seen, people who get the job that doesn't fit them well will end up quitting. I love that the authors bring out that the extent to which the organisation itself values authentic behaviour may be influencing the favourability of authentic self-representation. This is precisely the case in the workplace. I would add that not just the organisation itself, but also the informal network within the organisation plays a key role.

I don't know for sure whether we should bring our authentic self to workplaces, nor current research seems to conclusively provide an answer. I think a lot needs to be done in finding out moderators/factors/situations that contributes to the advantages and disadvantages of authentic self-representation. All in all, I think the benefits of being oneself — including but not limited to comfortable in your own genders, voicing out concerns, and embracing your personality, in the workplace is obvious and paramount. The problem is how often we can get to be ourselves without worrying about loss of opportunities or not matching a desirable image?

Should you swim against the tide?

Whoever swims, knows how tired it is to swim against the tide. In a similar situation, it is hard and tired to fight against the dominant culture. The Chinese culture has socialised us Chinese towards collectivism and into being humble and grateful but not self-love and -respect. I have seen so many great women fight in their own ways to achieve success but seldom feel proud of their achievements (count me in).

Dominant culture spills over into work culture. Keep your head low, work hard, let your work speak for yourself and "if you are gold, you will always shine". All these culture-infused conventional wisdoms have a halo over it. They convey an idea that your efforts and virtues will be recognised someday as long as you have them. Before that day, the reality is raise your head, work smart, let your alliance speak for you and if you blend in, you will have better chances of getting promoted.

As a woman, it seems that if you could match the dominant woman stereotype in your industry, you will have a better chance of climbing up the corporate ladder faster. You may also need to find the right alliance — one of the dominant groups. If you are aiming for leadership position, you cannot swim against the tide. You have to follow it and leverage its strength to get to your destination. The leadership world is patriarchal as it is today. Thus, it goes back to the same tactic — you have to possess leadership characteristics that are typical of men but you cannot fully show them because people still expect you to fulfil your gender role. In some sense, i think this has reinforced gender disparity in the workplace.

Gender is a complex social phenomenon. It does not stand alone. You are not just represented by your genders but an intersection of your social categories — race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Many corporations are aware of DEI issues in the workplace and want to change. As far as I can see, small and local companies often don’t give a shit to DEI due to limited budget, low need of public image, small influence or simply that owners don't care.

Though with good intention, DEI initiatives nonetheless stay at the surface — the CSR page, the PR campaign and the brand image. As employees, we may join a corporate DEI training session with Director of DEI from the headquarters, and respond positively. We may tell stakeholders that the corporation is pouring budgets and resources into DEI initiatives and the job applicants that the company is an equal opportunity employer. Yet all these seemingly plausible actions do not change the status quo in the workplace because neither majority nor minority group members believe in DEI initiatives, leading to explicit and implicit forms of resistance. DEI initiatives barely infiltrate into the organisation’s powerful informal networks, where information exchange, personal relationship, work satisfaction, employee retention and all sorts of subtle, critical events that eventually contribute to the success or failure of an organisation, take place. I have never had an informal/casual conversation with colleagues on the corporate’s DEI initiatives, no matter they are the majority groups or the minority groups. Nobody cares about the initiatives outside of the compulsory training sessions. Nothing changes except we have one more poster in the pantry and the hallway, regular mass emails and training sessions.

It is a waste of money and energy to implement superficial DEI initiatives. Researchers and corporations should instead make efforts to understand why DEI initiatives are being resisted from the perspective of intersectionality, and investigate various forms of resistance. With this knowledge and factoring the cultural context, they may then propose more practical DEI initiatives. Until that day, we will have to keep fighting.

References:

Cheryan, S., & Markus, H. R. (2020). Masculine defaults: Identifying and mitigating hidden cultural biases. Psychological Review, 127(6), 1022.

Jost, J. T. (1997). An experimental replication of the depressed‐entitlement effect among women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(3), 387–393.

Moore, C., Lee, S. Y., Kim, K., & Cable, D. M. (2017). The advantage of being oneself: The role of applicant self-verification in organizational hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(11), 1493.

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