This statistic reveals that many companies make promises they can’t keep. Some organizations claim to have measures in place to support diversity, equity and inclusion, but in reality, this is only a communication exercise without concrete actions. We talk about greenwashing when a company boasts of respecting the environment without actually doing so. Well, today we are witnessing pinkwashing. At the same time, it must be recognized that it is not easy to transform from start to finish a culture of work that has been developed for people, by people, and that is why the companies that are most successful in terms of equity and parity invest significant efforts in this, usually initiated by senior management.
We must trust ourselves, listen to our intuition and realize that we are entitled to the same opportunities as men. Then, you have to surround yourself with sponsors, not mentors. A mentor can listen and give advice, but a sponsor is the one who will open the doors to which we do not have access. The reality today, given the lack of gender parity in senior management positions, is that our sponsors will often be men. We need these allies to advance and reach key positions or to take advantage of opportunities that are otherwise unattainable to us as entrepreneurs. For their part, companies must offer women a work environment that meets their needs: a hybrid and flexible way of working, but above all advancement and development plans whose milestones are clear with pay equity.
The good news is that we are able to recognize the phenomenon of mansplaining today. We must now denounce it. Our recent report on gender equity in the workplace references statistics released last year by McKinsey: 37% of women said a colleague had already been given credit of their idea, and female managers were twice as likely as male managers to be mistaken for someone lower in the office. It’s the majority of women who report experiencing some form of discrimination, or even microaggression in the workplace (mansplaining is one example), and that’s not changing fast enough. I come back to the notion of allies: we need the support of men in order to achieve equity and to end all forms of discrimination related to our sex.
After working nearly 20 years as a communications and marketing executive in the corporate world, I have observed firsthand the challenges women face in terms of equity and advancement, as well as the lack of representation. women both in conferences and in the media. I started my business with the goal of giving more visibility to women in business through our content platforms (podcasts, conferences, etc.), in addition to supporting them with strategic communications consulting services. I also host The Brand is Female podcast where I interview a business woman every week about her journey. We have over 200 episodes in the bank.
