
I often think about whether my daughter will enter a workplace without any biases against women. After all, we’re supposedly in a ‘woke’ culture, so surely the playing field is now level. But there’s often a big difference between what is said on social media and what is happening in the real world.
Indeed, it seems that the COVID pandemic hit women more than men in the labour market. Part of this was due to lockdowns impacting sectors, like hospitality, dominated by women. But another factor was the additional pressure on employed women from working mothers having to undertake additional childcare and teaching duties with school closures and working adult daughters having to look after parents. This notably impacted the career aspirations of women.
And now with most companies urging workers to return to the office, the question is how men and women will interact after having not worked together for a while. Before the pandemic, a PEW survey found that 60% of women had been sexually harassed at work. At the same time, the survey found that men were finding it harder to know how to interact with women for fear of being accused of harassment. Will we return to this, or has something changed?
But rather than hoping we have learned the right lessons, it’s good for men like myself to remind ourselves of ways in which we hold women back at work, often without realising it. Most studies seem to identify four ways this happens:
On top of that, studies find that men should not:
And men should:
So armed with these insights, hopefully, men like me contribute to making the workplace a level playing field for women.
Good luck
Thanks,
Bilal
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