In the Declaration of Independence there is an iconic phrase, one that nearly every American and others around the world, can quote without help, “All men are created equal”. But oftentimes it’s easy to forget, in 2019 when we’ve achieved a seeming gender parity, that when these words were written, most people truly believed that women were not, in fact, created equal to men. While we’ve been working hard to change that, and nobody credible would write a phrase like that in this day and age, it’s also easy to overlook that those words formed our nation and influence our culture to this day.

              The data makes it fairly clear, even though women outnumber men as college graduates, the pay gap begins immediately, and the men : women ratio only goes up in favor of men as folks climb the various career ladders. Often times, we refer to it as a “pipeline” problem, there just aren’t enough of the ‘right kind of women’, rather than looking at the effects of cognitive bias and the way it affects all of us—men and women. Rather than a true pipeline problem, it’s often more of an issue of who raises their hands (men), and whose caution—a survival mechanism that women have employed for most of history—is causing them to keep their hands in their laps, behave, and wait for recognition.

              I recently started hosting my own podcast, which consists of segments where I interview anyone and everyone with a perspective on culture. Basically, the concept is that since everyone is unique, everyone has a unique perspective based on their own individual life journey. My guests have a chance to tell me their life stories, which are always interesting, and then we chat about what insights they’ve gleaned from their specialized point of view. As host and curator, not to mention a Hispanic, military veteran woman, the diversity of my guests is important to me—my way of ensuring that I get well-rounded perspectives over time.

              So, I put out a call for guests on various platforms where one goes to find business professionals, like LinkedIn. In my call for speakers, I specifically mentioned that I’d like to hear from folks with historically marginalized voices—namely women, people of color, the LGTBQ+ community, those with disabilities, and others. I got a lot of responses, from mostly white men. Some even seemed a little offended with the way I had worded the call. I realized that changing my approach was necessary. It was also more than a little revealing. We live in a world, even in 2019, that is quick to see any lack of diversity as a lack of ‘qualified people’, rather than as a lack of diverse, highly qualified people raising their hands.

              I realized that I needed to go find women on some women’s only platforms, a place where they knew their voices wouldn’t be drowned out. Fortunately, I’m a member of a variety of groups like this, including some that have to be secret, or else their existence would be targeted. On those platforms, I got a lot of responses as well, in fact, more than I could handle all at once. It made me gladder than ever that I had not settled for, “well, I guess these men are just more qualified”, and had gone to a place where the women felt free to raise their hands, to volunteer themselves.

              So much has been written about socialization, about the way that women need to lean in, press forward, and raise their hands. In the Veteran activism space, we focus so intensely on why women themselves don’t step-forward and self-identify as Veterans, that we sometimes forget to take a close look at the cultural messaging that woman Veterans receive at every turn—messaging that often is so male-dominated that we appear an after thought if we are even thought of at all, like the recent Marine Corp birthday video that in 8 mins of air time included exactly 6-seconds of women on screen.

So today, I want to talk about what we can do to find women (concepts can be applied to other marginalized groups) who may not yet be socialized to know that they can raise their hands, draw attention to themselves, and share their expertise with the world. How can we open doors for those who’ve been taught throughout history that they should hide, that their place is in the home, and that the world was created for men?

Unconscious bias is not anyone’s fault as individuals, it’s a result of thousands of cultural images and social messaging that we interact with on a daily basis. However, there is a lot that individuals or organizations can do to bring unconscious bias to a conscious level—once we realize (and accept) that, while humans might all be created equal, we don’t all move through the world with equality just yet, we can begin to frame our actions, conversations and thoughts in very different ways.

Here are some ways to start today:

1. Make Your Job-Ads, Calls for Talent, and Company Literature Women Friendly

When business leaders ask me for advice on how to attract more women, I often challenge them to host events that attract more women. It’s a complex issue, but it’s also simple—men and women are different, whether that’s inherent or because of how we’ve been socialized, that is a fact. We walk through the world differently, and so we respond to different things. If after hours mentoring happy hours aren’t drawing women into the space, try lunch meetings or even breakfast meetings. Try different approaches, and you can even just ask women what they want. The answers I get when I ask specific groups of people what would appeal to them, with openness and no judgement, is always astounding.

There’s so much in the wording, subliminal messaging, and presentation of the ‘traditional’ way that things have always been done, that is messaging to women that this is not the place for them. And if you’re not a woman, or a woman who’s spent time thinking about these things, you may well just not be able to see it. Before you launch your next ad-campaign or make that job description public, try to find a whole slew of women who will give you their opinion on whether or not it makes them feel welcome. And believe them.

2. Find the Women’s Spaces

This goes along with hosting things in a way that attract women and getting your messaging right. We also need to advertise in the places where women look and find the places, online or in person, where women hang out. Often, even if women are in the spaces where the men are, they don’t feel as free to volunteer themselves, exercise their opinion, or raise their hands. This is the effect of centuries of cultural messaging, and it doesn’t change just because we are told that we need to negotiate more or our hands. Change will happen, but it goes both ways—please bring the change to us as well.

3. Call on Women Even when They Don’t Raise Their Hands

This applies to professors or speakers, or anyone in front of a crowd, but also to hiring managers and business leaders. On graduation day in 2009, I gave a speech in front of several thousand of my fellow graduates, as one of the top-ranked students in our university, but only after the Dean called and asked me why I hadn’t applied to speak like others had. I knew I was good, I knew I deserved to be there, and I knew I had something to say, but I wasn’t ready to raise my hand. Today it’s a point in my bio, one of my achievements, “I was college valedictorian”, but I know that I wouldn’t have been without an invitation.

Many studies and surveys show that a lot of women feel this way—to the point that men will apply for jobs that they are only 20% qualified for, while women will only throw their hat into the ring when they feel they meet greater than 80% of everything listed on a job description. An invitation to apply, to interview, to lead a meeting, or to offer expertise or insight from a senior leader can make all the difference as to which voices are being heard.

4. Take Sexual Harassment (at all levels) Seriously

This goes without saying and yet it doesn’t. Almost every woman in a professional setting has been the victim of comments, barbs, jabs, flirtations and jokes that make her uncomfortable, and those are the lucky ones. These aren’t small concerns, but rather a big part of the reason why women don’t stay in the workforce at the same rate as men, and why women leave traditionally male-dominated career fields at a higher rate than other careers.

If you are the kind of business leader that is really trying to understand why your company is not attracting, or keeping, women, it behooves you to take a close look at this side of the culture of your organization. It doesn’t have to be a major issue to have a major (negative) effect on who is willing to stay on your team.

5. Promote Your Current Female Talent into Positions of Power 

Women take notice of other women and being the only person in the room who looks like you is an uncomfortable feeling, in almost every situation. I’ll never forget the time I was in Afghanistan, sitting with 43 of my peers in a training session—it was the first group of women the Army was training for deliberate combat missions with all male-units. Every man that came to teach, including religious leaders and others whose job it was to speak for a living, mentioned how nerve-wracking it was to speak in front of a room full of women. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. It made me realize why being the briefing officer was such a nervous experience for me—I was almost always the only women in the room, and that was subconsciously affecting me, until I became conscious of it.

When women are in positions of power, on hiring teams, and on outreach teams, more women apply, simple fact. Part of the pipeline problem gets solved by breaking open the pipeline problem in the first place. Plus, all of the above tips, that you need advice from women to implement correctly, now you’ll have them on your right hand.

Most importantly, it’s important to be able to have open and honest conversations about these topics, without anyone feeling attacked or put upon. None of us can possibly know what we don’t know, and culture is influenced, built and changed by those who are willing to have the hard conversations, and to do the hard work.

DANIELLA YOUNG IS A TEDX SPEAKER, AN AUTHOR, COMBAT VETERAN, BOARD MEMBER OF OPERATION CODE, & THE CO-FOUNDER OF CAVNESSHR—AN HR-TECH COMPANY WHO’S MISSION IS TO MAKE BIG-BUSINESS HR AVAILABLE TO SMALL BUSINESSES, THROUGH INNOVATIVE SAAS AND VIRTUAL CONSULTING. DANIELLA SPECIALIZES IN HELPING BUSINESSES CREATE CULTURE ROADMAPS, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLANS & EFFECT TEAM TRANSFORMATION. WANT TO LEARN MORE? VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT cavnesshr.com.

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