Regina King Wants 50-50 Gender Parity In The Workplace: Here’s How We Get There

Last weekend at the Golden Globes, award-winner Regina King made a bold promise: that everything she produces in the next two years will be 50 percent women. It was an admirable pledge and a great boost to ongoing efforts for workplace equality in America, and especially in male-dominated Hollywood. Hidden in her words, however, was the acknowledgment of how hard it was going to be to achieve her goal and how ambitious it really is to attempt getting to 50-50.

“I’m making a vow — it’s going to be tough — to make sure that everything that I produce that is 50% women.”

So if Regina King with her huge platform and top status in the entertainment industry knows she’s going to have a hard time hiring 50% women, what does that mean for the rest of us, in small organizations and large, looking to promote equity and inclusion in our workplaces? The World Economic Forum predicts it will take 217 years to reach global equality for women and men in the professional sphere. 217 years is over two centuries! And even Accenture, the storied professional services firm has made a public commitment to gender parity, is forecasting that it will take them until 2025 to achieve a gender-balanced workforce. Why is it so hard and what does it take to get there?

Why is it so hard to get to 50-50?

Even though it is common knowledge at this point that gender-diverse organizations outperform those with low diversity and inclusion numbers, women (and minorities) remain underrepresented across the board, particularly at the highest levels of organizations. It is a systemic issue and although legal mandates and changing hiring practices to be more inclusive is a big and necessary step, much more needs to be done to dismantle the system of overt and covert discrimination that has historically held women back. And without sufficient representation at the highest levels of business who are focused on taking down the old gender-biased system, it’s no surprise that progress has been slow. Which brings me to my next, very important point…

What does it take to get there?

Women, whether you want to hear this or not, what it takes to get to 50-50 is YOU. It will take digging our heels in, playing the long game, and being the ones to transform our organizations into ones we deserve to work for—from within.

Job-hopping has long been seen as a quicker way to move up the corporate ladder. It can also be the easier way out when we’re dealing with career-limiting workplace biases that make us feel “less than” and chip away at our ambitions. Nobody’s going to fault us when sexism paired with a lack of advancement opportunities and an unsupportive corporate culture lead us to look outside of our current companies.

BUT (and it’s a big but)…

Consider that the only way we will begin to see an increase in women at the top levels of all companies is if we make the decision to stay, to work from within to create more inclusive cultures, to push for the flexibility that we require to excel on all fronts, and to remove the hiring, promotion and other workplace biases that have historically denied women a seat at the table. I believe we need to stay with our companies and see it through in order to ensure our voices are heard, our professional needs are met, and our value is recognized. That’s what I mean when I talk about digging your heels in.

Disclaimer: I know it’s a very personal decision to make that’s not for everybody. If you are facing discrimination or harassment that is eating away at your soul, your only job is to do what’s best for you in your situation.

But for those for whom digging your heels in may be the right option, consider this: The more time you spend at one particular organization, the more power you have to identify where and how to make change happen. This is how we evolve inequitable practices that reward the wrong behaviors and stifle the right ones.

I’m passionate about helping women to dig their heels and create the companies we all deserve to work for–so much so that I wrote an entire book about it! I wholeheartedly believe that we need to be on the front lines in the fight for equality in our own workplaces.

Take Neela Montgomery, CEO of Crate and Barrel. She told me the story of her first presentation at a board meeting in which she was talked down to and dismissed by the men in the room. She was “done” and ready to quit until the CEO approached her and apologized. But his next piece of advice is what really kept her there. He told her, “Your job is to change this and be in that room.”

And so she did. Neela played the long game and ten years later she had a seat on that very board. Now she had the power to ensure that no women experienced the same humiliating treatment that she did in that boardroom.

Change happens from within. We have to stay in the room to keep ensuring our voices are heard, to leverage the blood, sweat, and tears we have already put into our careers at our companies, and to create the roles and the workplace that you deserve.

It is truly the only way we, collectively, will begin to create a world of business where 50-50 isn’t just a bold ambition, it’s a reality.

I’m on a mission to empower women everywhere with the
tools, language, and confidence they need to dig their heels in and demand the change they deserve from within the corporate world. In my writing, I’ll explore the issues at the individual and enterprise level that hol… MORE
I’m Joan Kuhl. Pre-order my new book, Dig Your Heels In, a playbook to arm women with the strategies to transform their company. I support Girls Inc of NYC, GSUSA and #SheBelieves

Source forbes.com