The daughter effect
The practice of men claiming their daughters as feminist credentials while turning a blind eye to sexism has passed its use-by date.
It’s become such a common response from male business leaders when discussing gender that it’s been dubbed ‘’the daughter effect”. That penny-dropping moment when the scales fell from their eyes about gender inequality in the workplace, many male executives say, didn’t occur in the workplace. It came from realising that their own girls (usually not their sisters, wives or women colleagues) would not have the same opportunities as boys.
Sometimes a personal trigger like this genuinely kicks off some awareness-raising that eventually makes a big difference. But far too often it’s window dressing – amplified in media interviews and on stage by leaders of organisations where precious little has changed for many women, either in status or pay.
The daughter effect is hardly a new phenomenon in the world of work, although it’s not often publicly critiqued. Even token support from powerful men has been gratefully received. But the syndrome has been well and truly scrutinised recently in the wake of sexual assault allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
A range of high-profile men – including New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck – mentioned their daughters when responding to the allegations. The trend was noted by several commentators, who pointed out you shouldn’t need a daughter to be a decent human being or to call out workplace harassment.
Increasingly, the mention of daughters is being seen as a fairly clumsy attempt to “gender wash” by failing to call out abuses of power and address the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem. And after all, the dynamics of the family, where there are well-established social norms about fathers protecting and supporting their daughters, are very different from vying for status and rewards in competitive workplaces the world over. And there are quite a lot of men in the C suite who do not have daughters but have plenty of power to change deeply embedded bias, norms and attitudes – and some of them are doing just that.
Telling your employees you have a daughter and understand the barriers that women face doesn’t mean much unless there’s a bit more skin in the game. Personal commitment is terrific, but it needs to be matched by action.
‘Some of the findings showing the daughter effect are a bit of a stretch.’
Ensuring more women are appropriately recognised and rewarded, for example, is often deeply unpopular and takes much more effort than pulling out the daughter card.
And if you can only connect with the problem of sexism through your child, then maybe you are not seeing the impact of the discrimination around you. Privilege, as US academic Michael Kimmel says, is invisible to those who have it.
It means acknowledging the problems faced by your female peers and that traditional masculine leadership is part of the problem right now, not a challenge for the future.
That said, over the years research has found a link between male executives with daughters and the number of women in senior jobs, or the action around areas such as corporate social responsibility. But while these results grab the headlines, they need to be approached with caution.
For example, a recent study found a connection between male partners in venture capital firms with daughters and the number of women appointed.
In their paper “And the children shall lead” (hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52703), Paul Gopers and Sophie Wang of Harvard Business School “find strong evidence that parenting more daughters leads to an increased propensity to hire female partners by venture capital firms”.
But some of the findings showing the daughter effect are a “bit of a stretch”, as researcher Jeannine Prime, of US women and work research firm Catalyst, commented a few years ago. They are often statistically small and more likely to have an impact in smaller firms, and much less likely to result in CEOs tackling structural bias.
A more sustainable motivation than having daughters is a passion for giving everyone a fair go, Catalyst found. When examining what makes men strong advocates, having a daughter was not a factor; a working spouse was, but the key incentive was a commitment to fairness. This was reflected in Australian research on the advocacy group Male Champions of Change, released last year by Melbourne Business School academic Isabel Metz.
While the motivation for joining the group varied, and it was more likely to be personal than external, Metz found that the champions who were most committed to gender equity – and sometimes did mention their daughters – were also likely to be active supporters of change as opposed to bystanders.
The secret to continued impact is finding and keeping those passionate leaders who go beyond lip service. They commit time and financial resources, are prepared to be public advocates, and understand that this is a long-term commitment with lots of upside but also plenty of downside, Metz concluded.
They wanted a fairer workplace, not just bottom line results, to be part of their leadership legacy.
And let’s face it, if we have to rely on men having daughters to recognise and address even some of the well-documented barriers women face at work, then the pace of change is likely to continue at the same rate as ever. Glacial.