Have a Seat with the C-Suite, Vol. 5
In this week’s Have a Seat with the C-Suite, we broaden our outlook to include global efforts at gender equity (and global consequences of gender inequity). While our focus is typically on the US context and particularly on US schools, our efforts are designed to complement and echo the work of people worldwide who are already deeply engaged in similar efforts. We highlight below a few international reports and leaders.
Try: United State of Women YouTube Channel
On May 5th and 6th, the United State of Women Summit took place. Many of AEC’s favorites were present, including Michelle Obama, Tracee Ellis Ross, Brittany Packnett, and Senator Kamala Harris. Even though we didn’t score a ticket, we can join vicariously and virtually through the USOW YouTube Channel. Several thousand women joined to talk about women in politics, leadership, and the intersection of gender, race, class, and ability. Settle in for a longer panel or get a quick dose of inspiration with some of the edited highlights, like this one with Elaine Welteroth and Yara Shahidi. Even more importantly, scroll through the website and check out the One Million Actions campaign. The campaign encourages people to take one million actions toward gender equality, which are divided into several categories close to our hearts like Economic Empowerment and Access to Education. In just a few clicks, you can take action and be part of the one million.
Read: Why a Gender Shift Will Save our Girls from the Jaws of Extremism
A Kenyan newspaper, The Star, makes an explicit connection between increased educational and economic opportunity for girls and a reduction in extremist activity. Boko Haram, an extremist Muslim group, not only killed 80 women and girls in 2017, but also recruits women and girls to be suicide bombers. This article notes that one in five suicide bombers in West Africa are women and three in four child suicide bombers are girls. The government of Kenya has made significant strides to ensure that girls receive educational opportunity equivalent to that of their male peers. Education is a cornerstone of Kenya’s efforts to counter violence and extremism throughout its borders. Not only does it make economic sense (equal female-male employment globally would result in an additional $28 trillion in the global economy), but it would contribute to gender equity by reducing child marriages, providing women with greater social and political voice, and increased financial stability and independence. Taken together, author Ambassador Mohamed believes that these steps will lead to increased agency for women and families and therefore fewer incentives to engage in extremist activities.
Share: Gender Equality and Female Empowerment
Just this month, USAID (US Agency for International Development) released a comprehensive plan for gender equity through a number of pathways. The executive summary, linked here, offers a few share-able paragraphs outlining USAID’s goals throughout southeast Asia (Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand, specifically). These may sound familiar because agencies in the US are also tackling similar initiatives, including: economic empowerment for women, gender equality in science, integrating women in conservation efforts (particularly in efforts to protect biodiversity in fisheries), promoting health, and quality care for survivors of human trafficking in Asia. We identified two takeaways from this report:
Efforts to promote gender equality look similar goals around the world. This means that there are ample opportunities for international collaborations and replicating successful models from country to country.
That said, gender equality must be integrated into specific cultural and social mores within different countries. For example, in southeast Asia, this means extra attention to the ways in which women participate in traditionally male pathways and professions such as fishing, or emphases on specific needs, like material health.
Lead: Sexism isn’t just unfair; it makes women sick, study suggests
This study asks two questions: how pervasive are patterns of workplace harassment for both men and women? And, does sexism – for both men and women – contribute to different perceptions of mental and physical health? The researchers used the United States General Social Survey, and nearly 4,000 people responded to the relevant items. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 8.4 percent of responding women report experiencing workplace gender discrimination in the previous 12 months (for men, 2 percent) and 4.1 of women report that they’ve experience sexual harassment in their workplaces in the same time period (for men, 1.3 percent). Next, the study examined whether these reported experiences of gender-based mistreatment were related to health outcomes (controlling for factors like age and socioeconomic status, which often contribute to poor health). The results are staggering: “Among women, perceptions of gender discrimination are significantly associated with worse self-reported mental health.” The authors suggest that so few men reported experiences of harassment that they could not identify a similarly significant relationship. These outcomes are worse for people who experience multiple forms of discrimination, including older women. Taken together, these results suggest that about ten percent of the gender gap in self-reported health is attributable to discrimination. What does this mean for leaders? It is incumbent upon organizational leaders to eliminate harassment and discrimination of all types. Employees who are safe from discrimination and harassment are healthier and more consistent workers. Not only is this good for employees’ mental health, but it’s also good for your bottom line.
Our comments are open! We’d love to hear what’s working or not working for you in these roundups. Or, if you have suggestions for what to cover, drop us a note.
- Lauren