18
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.
—Jane Goodall, anthropologist1
Indian union minister Farooq Abdullah found himself embroiled in controversy following comments he made regarding India’s new sexual harassment laws. India recently instituted new sexual harassment legislation aimed at making the workplace more hospitable toward women. So what got Abdullah in so much hot water? He spoke out about the sex partition. He described how the new regulations made him feel about women in the office: “I am scared to talk to a woman these days. I don’t even want to keep a woman secretary. Who knows, I might end up in jail because of a complaint. No, I am not blaming the girls, I am blaming society.”2
According to the Times of India, criticism immediately poured in regarding Abdullah’s comments, and women’s activist groups demanded his resignation. The chairperson of India’s National Commission for Women labeled his comments “disgusting”3 and Abdullah’s son tweeted that he hoped his father would apologize for his “misplaced attempt at humor.”4 Others suggested his comments were a warning that women who complain of harassment will lose their jobs.
Under pressure, Abdullah did apologize for his comments. But did we need an apology from someone who just opened up about his concerns? One social activist, in her attempts to slam Abdullah, was quoted as saying, “When men say they are afraid of hiring or talking to women as Farooq Abdullah did, they are visibly a victim of their own insecurity.”5 She’s absolutely right. Men like Abdullah are feeling insecure, and Abdullah was merely voicing this insecurity. What’s wrong with that?
Instead of condemning Abdullah, I believe he should be commended for starting a dialogue regarding men’s insecurity regarding sexual harassment. His comments should be seized as an opportunity to allay his fears and the fears of other men who shared his concerns. At this point, we don’t even know why Abdullah feared talking to women. Did he fear false sexual harassment charges or was he afraid he would inadvertently harass someone? If he had been able to explain, it would have presented a great opportunity not only to dispel his fears, but to explain the importance of his interactions with female employees.
But that didn’t happen. Abdullah was shut down. Because sexual harassment laws are new to India, Abdullah didn’t realize the scorn he would face by discussing his fears. Since sexual harassment laws have a longer tenure in the United States, men here have already learned that it’s taboo to speak of such things. Men in the United States just reduce their interactions with female employees and don’t talk about it.
Unfortunately, an open dialogue on these issues is the first step in eradicating them. Let’s face it, men still run the majority of organizations, and they need to understand that interactions with women, including social interactions, are essential to women’s success. Segregating your socializing by gender is discriminatory, even if it’s just lunch or water cooler talk.
We can begin to improve this situation by talking about it. We can start talking about interactions between men and women, and what makes them difficult. And by talking about it, we can make it better.
Starting Dialogues at Work
We can start a dialogue on a societal level, like Farooq Abdullah attempted, or at an organizational level, as we discussed in previous chapters. However, the most important dialogues are those with our own coworkers and friends. Whether about issues of romantic interest, business trip issues, issues surrounding sexual harassment, or just misunderstandings resulting from gender differences, it’s important to get these issues out of the closet. When you see an example of the sex partition in action, let your coworkers know. Not in a harsh “you need to be punished for this” kind of way, but in a “I bet you didn’t even realize you were doing this” kind of way.
I started just such a dialogue with my friend Kevin. Kevin is a technology executive and has a pair of season tickets to Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games. His wife often attends games with him, but the Dodgers have a lot of home games. When she can’t take any more baseball, he offers this extra ticket to an employee on his staff. I noticed that his baseball buddies were always male, and I suspected the sex partition was to blame. I decided to talk to Kevin about how he chose employees to join him at the games. Clearly, the employees who joined him for games had the advantage of getting to know the boss better, and potentially putting forth their ideas for the organization. When an important assignment surfaced, Kevin may be more likely to give it to the guy he got to know at the baseball game.
I explained this all to Kevin and asked him why he never took female employees to the games. His gut reaction was it would be awkward to invite a female employee, and if he did, he wasn’t sure his wife would be okay with it. It was too complicated. The female employee might think it was a date. If she was married, her husband might think Kevin was making a move. In other words, the sex partition was keeping female employees from the baseball invitation.
I got Kevin thinking about it and suggested he start by talking to his wife. Not surprisingly, when he spoke to his wife, she agreed it wasn’t fair that he didn’t offer the tickets to women in the office. After all, he and his employees did discuss business at the games, and his male employees had more of a chance to get to know him. She was all for Kevin giving the female employees a chance.
One possible solution that initially seems fair would be for Kevin to e-mail his entire staff when he had an extra ticket. The first to respond would land the extra seat. While that’s certainly better than excluding women completely, it’s not ideal. Women might be reluctant to jump on the ticket offer for the same reasons Kevin was reluctant to ask them directly. That is, a female employee may have concern that Kevin or the other employees would get the wrong idea if she volunteered to go to the game with him. This time an open dialogue with the employees would be necessary to clear the air.
I told Kevin he should approach his employees, apologize for his men-only baseball outings, and openly express his concerns. He should explain how he was afraid that if he offered the ticket to a woman she might think it was a date. Or she would feel like she had to go even if she hated baseball. Or that her husband might come beat him up. Or that rumors would fly in his department. The female employees would appreciate his honesty. Through this type of open dialogue, the employees can establish a fair method of distributing Kevin’s extra tickets.
Several dialogues were required here. First, someone had to point out to Kevin that the sex partition was impacting his behavior. Awareness is a catalyst. It gets people thinking about their behavior in a way they hadn’t before. Sometimes that’s all it takes. In Kevin’s situation, further talks with his spouse and employees were required. However, it’s identifying these situations, and pointing them out, that gets the ball rolling in the right direction.
If someone is excluding women in your office, it’s important to speak up. Sometimes, particularly if it’s a senior employee, direct confrontation can be awkward. In this case, you should speak to someone in your human resources department. Explain that women are being excluded from a particular event—and while the event might not be directly work related, those attending the event are receiving work perks. Human resources can intervene, and hopefully no one needs to know you were the whistle-blower.
Most people don’t realize the repercussions associated with their choices. Pointing them out can go a long way to increasing women’s inclusion. However, be prepared. If Kevin gives his extra baseball ticket to you, it may be a little uncomfortable. Once again, the best advice for overcoming this discomfort is to talk about it. Most important, get out in front of rumors. Talk to your coworkers about your impending outing with Kevin. Tell your fellow employees about your fears that people will think you’re trying to sleep your way to the top. Start a dialogue.
Starting Dialogues with Kids
Starting a dialogue with our children can also help future generations break down the sex partition. Kids tend to like kids who are similar to themselves. However, if a child comes home and reports that he doesn’t want to be friends with a new classmate because he has a different skin color or because he’s wheelchair bound, most parents are propelled into action. They start a dialogue with their children about race and diversity. Parents are not alone in this task, as numerous websites and books offer guidance for parents desiring to talk to their children about precisely these issues.
Now imagine a boy comes home from school and says he doesn’t want to be friends with a new classmate because she’s a girl. The reaction will likely be quite different. Parents aren’t typically propelled into action with this comment. No dialogue ensues. No talking about the importance of having friends of both genders follows. In fact, the parents may think it’s cute that the young boy is avoiding girls. At best, the young boy may get a humorous warning regarding his likely future interest in the opposite sex, such as, “Someday soon you’ll feel differently about girls.”
Indeed, I don’t know of any books or websites that guide parents on how to talk to their children about accepting diversity when it comes to male versus female. Let’s not let that stop us. We need to start a dialogue with our children about how girls aren’t so different from boys.
We must explain to our kids that befriending an opposite-sex classmate doesn’t mean you “like” the girl or boy. If a boy pokes fun at a classmate for befriending a girl, it’s not cute. It’s sexist. If he made fun of someone for befriending a classmate with a different skin color it would obviously be racist. So why is it so hard to recognize that it’s sexist to make fun of someone who befriends the opposite sex? We need to talk to all of our kids, boys and girls, about these topics.
Schools and teachers can also help bring male and female students together. Recently my son and his friends were complaining they had to sit on the floor during music class. It seems the classroom was short on chairs that day, so boys had to sit on the floor, leaving the chairs for the girls. Although, I’m sure the teacher thought that she was training the boys to be chivalrous, she was really doing a disservice to the girls and contributing to the sex partition. I explained to my son and his friends that girls are just as capable of sitting on the floor as boys. They’re not more fragile, weaker, or less flexible. They don’t need your seats. They are, indeed, just like boys in this situation. We talked about fairer methods to distribute the available seats—methods that didn’t alienate the boys from the girls. Giving the seats to those with the largest instruments seems like a much fairer division, and one that doesn’t segregate the sexes.
Helping our kids understand the value of having a diverse set of friends will help them throughout their lives. Ask your children what they gain from their friendships. What do their friends gain from them? What might you miss out on if all your friends were exactly like you? It’s important children understand that everyone needs friends, and it’s cool to have friends who aren’t exactly like you. We need to explain that each sex makes up half of the population, and eliminating half of the population from our pool of potential friends severely limits their possible friendships. Starting young will help break down the sex partition for future generations.
Breaking Down the Sex Partition
For both adults and children, it’s important to remember that the sex partition isn’t a physical barrier, it’s a social construction. People created it, and people can break it down. Women have ample experience breaking down barriers, and now they need to set their sights on this one. Female leaders were so scarce a half century ago that a 1965 Harvard Business Review article entitled “Are Women Executives People?” questioned, “Do women execs act like people, think of themselves as people, and does the business community treat them as people?”6 It’s hard to imagine now, but trailblazing female executives went to work with coworkers questioning whether they were “people.” Due to the efforts of previous generations, women no longer head to work with concerns about being perceived as a person. Unfortunately, we have new barriers to break now.
We need to begin trailblazing a new path. Women who befriend or socialize with their male colleagues, particularly one-on-one, may have to bear the brunt of some rumors or negative remarks. They may have to endure uncomfortable situations. However, as this behavior becomes more common, it will be questioned less and less. Female executives a half century ago endured negative comments and attitudes about their nontraditional roles, but their experiences made it easier for us today. Now we need to trail-blaze a path through the sex partition. It will be worth our efforts.
We must tread carefully in breaking down the sex partition. One of my primary concerns about venturing into this new territory was summarized in a comment left by a reader of a piece I wrote on the sex partition for The Guardian. The comment read: “Hey Babe, let’s go break down the sex partition . . .” This resonated with me, because it encapsulates one of the biggest dangers of implementing change. Encouragement to socialize with opposite-sex employees cannot be interpreted as a pass to sexually harass. I can’t emphasize enough that breaking down the sex partition doesn’t mean we need to set the clock back on sexual harassment. No one should have to endure harassing behavior in order to establish cross-sex networks. Developing a new approach to sexual harassment training and enforcement that does not segregate the sexes is yet another trail we must blaze.
There’s no easy fix for the sex partition. The suggestions in this book will take concerted efforts on behalf of women, men, and organizations. What’s the alternative? Pretending no sex partition exists in the workplace? It would certainly be easier to sweep these issues under the rug and continue with the status quo. That’s the strategy we’ve been using to date, and it doesn’t seem to be working so well. Breaking down the sex partition is essential if women are to achieve parity with men in the workplace. Yes, it will be difficult, but it will be worth the effort. There’s really no alternative.