There is good news!
Today is International Women’s Day 2020 and we want to discuss the current state that does, in fact, include good news. The theme this year is “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”. #GenerationEquality.
Kudos … We’ve gone from just .02% of Fortune 500 firms being run by a woman to just over 5% in the past twenty-five years! Of course, if we do the math on that trajectory, we’re looking at 250 years to reach parity. I don’t know about you all but that seems a bit too far off for us.
Let’s discuss what it’s going to take to move the needle faster and in a more meaningful way. At Above Glass Ceilings we believe that if we don’t leverage all of the progress that is happening then valid change will not happen in our lifetimes. We also believe it is essential that valid change does occur.
Why?
We can start with the Business Case. “Gender equality is critical not only to maintaining peaceful communities but to building a sustainable and flourishing global economy” ~ Reuters. Let’s talk about the Big Five: Data, Retail, Social Media, Product, & Software. These five have a profound impact on the globe. Who are we talking about? Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. Above Glass Ceilings has attended high-level forums aimed at solving this problem which included these firms, government, and prestigious universities, among others. There was a strong recognition that achieving gender parity is crucial in order to remain relevant and to continue to grow, innovate, and disrupt. The conclusion was that if they fail to do this their business will suffer which affects the global economy.
In addition to the business case, there is the welfare element. The world is better when women and girls across the globe are treated with decent, ethical, good, honest, righteous, true, and virtuous behavior.
In closing, let's all take a huge leap ahead in raising awareness around the implicit bias embedded into close to 2 billion and counting digital assistant devices that do everything from turning on a bedroom light, securing your home, providing driving directions, queuing up the music and organizing productivity, to delivering worldwide research. All of these devices are launched with a default female voice. Here at Above Glass Ceilings, we believe we should all have a choice related to normative gender roles. #digitalvoiceequality
Above Glass Ceilings is a corporate diversity consulting firm and advocacy group. To learn more about our services or to partner with us, please contact us using our contact form. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, like our page on Facebook, connect with us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to our newsletter.