Women At Work

​Discriminatory job advertisements are still utterly common around the world. Here’s a compilation of ten job ads that should make you cringe and rethink your job postings.Job advertisements that discriminate in terms of gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background are not a thing of the past. There are various instances where we (at times unintentionally) tend to hold onto biases and discriminate actively. This is especially true while sourcing and recruiting talent whether we are consciously aware of it or otherwise. While the recent Burger King “Women belong in the Kitchen” ad created a whopper of a controversy for the brand and Facebook definitely did not get a like for accusations of targeting ads to “ideal” talent pools, these conversations die down just as quickly as they come to the foreground and the status quo of collectively accepted gender discrimination and other biases is quickly restored.Our Secret BiasesRemember the gender-discrimination test when a scenario was narrated to you with a few key characters and your task was to come up with names for each of them or match them to a list of names already provided? The characters were usually a pilot, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, a parent, and a flight attendant and of course, you weren't told at the outset that this was to test your gender bias. On an average, people chose male names for the doctor and the pilot and female names for the parent, the nurse and the flight attendant (the teacher usually had a more mixed response). Moreover, when selecting from a provided list of names, people had a tendency to match names and professions based on what the names “sounded like” and usually exhibited their often unconscious racial bias. What a great idea for an icebreaker session to make things astoundingly awkward right from the beginning of a two-day sensitivity training program!Jokes aside, tests such as the one detailed above bring to light two things - that we are often unaware of our biases no matter how ingrained they are in our thought processes and that we regard them positively as something that is “right” or that “makes sense”. This is possibly the reasoning behind a lot of the ads that follow - where employers/recruiters genuinely believe that they’ve made the correct strategic decision in keeping their ads gender-specific and socio-economic -culture biased.1. The truth behind “women thriving”Yes, Japan does have laws in place that do not permit posting jobs with gender specifications. But who does that stop from being gender-discriminatory? Apparently not too many! There are multiple ads that try to bypass the gender-neutrality law by adding “women thriving” or “men thriving”. What this post directly translates to is:(Women thriving) General Affairs. Asked to perform a step-up task in the enviable Marunouchi area. Working for major corporations. Masked segregations such as these point towards the fact that we live in a world where some jobs are still considered “suitable” for a woman while some are not2. Stick to what you know, womenAds on a well-known job portal in Russia often go as far as to post a single job advertisement with clear specifications for men and women. It really does make you wonder what the HR thought while posting this. Or maybe, they didn’t think at all! The job roles are in keeping with socially dictated gender roles with women being encouraged to apply for jobs that do not require physical labour or even strategizing in a stressful environment.3. A “pretty” distorted realityWould you like being labelled as nothing more than a pretty face? Job ads such as the following one from Pakistan are unfortunately quite common where not only are “women preferred” but demands like “good-looking personality” and “attractive physique” are explicitly stated. Besides being gender-specific, such ads also bring in the added (not so subtle) note of objectifying women for client/customer-facing roles.4. It “pays” to be the right genderSome ads not only have distinctly different job descriptions for men and women despite the role being exactly the same, but are also exceptionally honest in stating that men are entitled to a 30% greater salary for the exact same job.This goes deeper than believing that men are better at the same job and thus deserve to be paid more. Some employers often state that hiring women are a bigger gamble since they have “family responsibilities'' as if that somehow disqualifies them or that if they’re newly married, they would inconvenience the organization by going on maternity leave soon. As much as we would like to believe that these are exaggerated untruths, these happen to be actual arguments that employers provided for their hiring decisions.5. Age is just a number...or is it?These ads for a male chemist and a female receptionist, besides being a commentary on widely accepted gender roles, also bring in the added point of age where, as expected, the age cut-off for the “attractive” woman candidate is 28 years whereas that for the man is 35. Clearly to be adequately productive, an organization just happens to need younger, attractive women. Why blame the HR when they’re just trying to create a vibrant work environment by being repulsively discriminatory, right?6. The best perksIt’s not uncommon for organizations to list out an attractive array of perks and benefits that come with the job but the following ad from an events organizing firm from London takes it a notch further. They felt the need to specify (in bold font) the presence of a diverse group of young female junior developers as a perk. Why choose between being sexist or ageist when you can be both!7. Say “Yes” to the goddessesSome ads really do make you do a double-take and disbelieve your own eyes. Several of the largest tech companies in China were flagged by a Human Rights Watch Report highlighting that job ads in China regularly state that “only men need apply” for about 19% of the posts (2018). On the contrary, there are no jobs that specify “women only” unless the role description is steeped in sexist innuendo. Even more repugnant is the not so subtle requirement for job ads to be a beauty contest requiring women to have certain physical attributes — with respect to height, weight, voice, or facial appearance — that are completely irrelevant to the requirement of the job.8. Massaging is a KPI (key Performance Index) too/ Massaging the male egoThis job post is as sad and unsettling as it is revealing of a prevalent culture that runs deep. Calling out to “physically presentable” women (also stating “She must be attractive”), the post goes on to state a list that leaves no skill-set out from modelling to dancing to product promotion to social media management and of course, to being able to “help the Boss relax” by a “professional sports massage”. That this ad was actually run and that it would have had enough applicants is the bitter truth that cannot be denied in our overtly shiny world of work where a lot of these issues are glossed over to make room for “bigger conversations” like work-life balance and productivity indices!Breaking Bad: Undoing the chemistry of biasOur biased thought loops need to be broken at the chemical level. Job advertisements like the ones listed above often make the bias-free work environment seem like nothing more than an overly hopeful vision of utopia. That actual functioning HR teams put out these ads is worrisome indeed. How can we function with these age-old stereotypes? Yes, stereotypes do help us make quicker decisions and function effectively. That said however, when stereotypes are laced with negative emotions, prejudices come into play. Biases and discriminatory behaviour are basically prejudices in action and this cognitive-affective-conative (thought-emotion-action) cycle is born.To break the cycle, we must look deeper at the machinery that runs it. We are what we do repeatedly and by reinforcing discriminatory behaviour (or even by ignoring it) we allow biases to grow to the point where they become reflex actions.With employer branding becoming an important tool for attracting top talent, employers need to understand the need to build a brand that encourages and reinforces a culture of diversity and inclusion - where, at every point of the employee life cycle, applicants, candidates and employees feel respected and valued as individuals.Management and HR need to be held accountable for taking the right call and held accountable for publishing posts that are discriminatory. There is no set formula to reverse years of reinforced bias but it is never too late to start. Drafting and publicising your core company values, creating clear criteria for hiring and conducting training sessions where your own branded vocabulary is checked and internalized are all part of a good way to begin your journey towards being more conscious of recruitment biases and thus moving a step closer towards building a workplace that is truly inclusive. 

​The unfair and yet all too real labels of being “too assertive”, “bossy” or “aggressive” are something that women deal with on the daily at the workplace merely for having a point of view and standing by it. That is the work ecosystem we inhabit - where despite efforts to bridge the gender gap, there are certain traits that are just regarded to be masculine and simply “un-ladylike”. How much is too much when it comes to being assertive at work? Who draws the line, where and why? Could being assertive do more harm than good for women and their careers?​Women and men work in distinctively different workplaces. Even when two individuals work in the same department, in the same organization, maybe even the exact same role - with every other variable being exactly the same other than their gender, how these two employees are perceived by their colleagues and how they perceive their workplaces are often entirely different.  It is a concerning and ubiquitous truth that even today, an assertive woman in the workplace risks being penalized or alienated simply for standing her ground.A study published with Fortune states that in almost 75% of performance reviews women receive "negative personality criticism" or score less on “likeability” for behaviour that would not normally be considered negative were it exhibited by their male colleagues.Behaviour is often, if not always, taken in the context of our gender.Moreover, when women behave in ways that are incongruous with the “accepted” norms for a woman, by being assertive, decisive and resolute for example, they are often called out for being difficult and bossy. Why is it that the same character traits that, in a man, are regarded as ideal qualities for a leader, seem utterly unacceptable in a woman?Being a strong woman in the workplace comes with its own set of challenges and requires careful navigation through multiple double standards. Women in leadership roles not only have to strive to be successful as a leader but also work to overcome the gender bias at work and be accepted as a leader first. That could possibly explain why many women leaders come are perceived as bullies because that is the persona they have had to create for themselves in order to survive an environment riddled with negative bias.What’s more is that this negative bias is not something that is directed at women solely by men. A study by the Workplace Bullying Institute reported that women are bullied by other women about 80% of the time. Studies also point out that women who have female bosses are bullied and abused more often. While this is unsettling, it also makes sense - college freshmen who are actively ragged are more likely to rag and bully their juniors the next year, and children who are bullied and abused at home, often lash out and bully other, more submissive schoolmates. Keeping up the “bully persona” takes hard work and especially to some women who work in male-dominated fields, it may seem helpful to seem intimidating. What is disheartening is that women (at times even subconsciously) subscribe to this toxic masculinity to maintain a tougher leadership style. This can lead to the “queen bee” syndrome where women who have had to fight for their rightful place at the table, are ready to battle it out with their female colleagues and subordinates to keep it, is a difficult obstacle to overcome, being rooted in our collective psychological fabric.But how does this tie into conversations around women breaking the glass ceiling and advancing into senior management? Do women then need to be assertive to shatter each of these barriers, to work harder, and to fight for their right to lead only to be criticised and penalised for being “too assertive”? The ludicrous irony here is difficult to ignore.The flipsideA substantial majority of women (be it in the corporate world or otherwise) would agree that they have, at some point, been told about the “benefits of being assertive and not aggressive”. But who defines the demarcation where assertiveness ends and aggression begins? Especially since the border seems rather fluid - changing in accordance with how threatened the person (usually a man) at the other end of this assertiveness feels. Women in the work ecosystem (and at home as well) are all too familiar with the strange dichotomy that characterises perception. This holds true especially in cases of transgression - while women are often called out for and have to apologise for “being” aggressive, men are alerted if they “come across “ as aggressive. In other words, women go through years of training in apologising for who they are.The labels women at work need to navigate, although quite similar in the wider context, differ in terms of geo-political and socio-cultural relevance. While women are “allowed” a higher level of assertiveness in more individualistic countries in the West, collectivistic countries in Asia seem to be a lot more stringent. In the Asian context where being submissive and demure are considered to be positive traits in a woman, there is a stronger fight necessary to break the mould that is imposed on every girl growing up. There is often a big shift needed to accept that being strong-willed, determined and undaunted are feminine traits as well and that when women are brave enough to fight for their rights or simply be vocal about their ideas, the automatic response should not be a curious mix of condescending approval and triggered discomfort.Beyond the glass ceilingWhat’s unfortunate is that even when a woman’s assertiveness is not immediately opposed to, it is often regarded as something that gives her an “edge” and that makes her either a topic of discussion or an objectifiable irregularity. In both cases, the point of being assertive is lost. Besides concentrating on drafting employee value propositions and corporate value statements that have “diversity and inclusion” written in bold, organizations need to focus on going beyond the optics of having women in leadership, on token diversity inclusions, and on creating a culture that is organically inclusive where leaders can be assertive and authentic in their leadership despite their gender.