Why we need to treat women differently

Denying the existence of differences between men and women was a useful phase we had to go through. It got us to here. But now it’s hurting women.

The business world’s denial of differences hurts women, and excludes them in many ways from leadership

Are men and women different? While almost every executive I have ever met, anywhere in the world, says yes, most diversity policies are designed as if the answer were no.

Recently, the global head of diversity of a professional services firm told me she “didn’t want to be treated differently”. That, I answered, is why most professional services firms are hovering well below the 20 per cent female partner level. As long as men and women are treated exactly the same most women will continue to be shut-out of senior roles. And yet for the past 30 years, managers have been taught to do just this: treat men and women exactly the same. That is considered the progressive thing to do. Any suggestion of differences was, and often still is, labelled a bias or a stereotype, especially by many women, eager to demonstrate that they are one of the guys.

The business world’s denial of differences hurts women, and excludes them in many ways — consciously and unconsciously — from leadership. Because differences are not recognised, women are too often simply judged as “not fitting” the dominant group’s systems, styles and patterns. There were good reasons for pushing “sameness” in the past, and the laws of many countries underlie today’s companies’ insistence on similar treatment — being treated the same is, after all, better than being treated worse.

But today, those are not our only options. It’s time for companies to adapt to women — or watch them walk out the door to competitors who will. In all the companies I work with, lack of recognition of basic differences like career cycles, communication styles or attitudes to power is enough to eliminate one gender and prefer the other.

When the roles are flipped and females form the dominant group ignorance about differences also hurts males. This is the argument of Michael Thompson, an expert on the psychology of boys and the author of “Raising Cain”. In a recent speech he argued that because eight out of nine US teachers are women, schools judge boys learning styles as subpar because they deviate from the norm set by girls and women.

Instead of adapting to boys’ differences (“more physical energy, developmentally less mature, use language differently,” as he put it), we insist both genders behave the same, and medicate our sons to calm them down. According to Thompson, 11 per cent of American boys are diagnosed as having ADHD and are on drugs for it. That’s 85 per cent of the global ADHD drug consumption. And since the late 1990s, boys have been more likely to drop out of school than girls. Imbalances such as these help account for the growing gender imbalance in higher education. We are creating a paradoxical situation: An educational system that produces a majority of female graduates and feeds them into a system that has not adapted and keeps promoting male styles as superior.

It’s not that women in business or boys in school need special treatment. Rather, every organisation should aim to maintain a high-performance meritocracy. But the simplest, most basic measure of this — that both genders succeed equally — remains elusive. What we see instead are unconsciously self-preferential systems being created because their leaders are convinced that gender shouldn’t matter.

By the way, I’m not arguing gender differences are innate. Innateness doesn’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. After all, businesses don’t debate whether the differences between Chinese and American employees are innate. They know that to work with and the Chinese require learning their language and culture. Working across genders is similar. Companies and managers, as well as teachers and educators, will need to learn the real and imagined differences between genders if they want to work with and for both men and women. They urgently need to become “gender bilingual”.

This does not mean creating boys-only schools, it does not mean continuing women-only networks and coaching and programs. Nor does it mean rolling out training that insists we are all the same, and the only obstacle is bias. (Bias is a problem but it’s far from the only one.) It does mean getting leaders to prioritise gender balance and be familiar with the kind of cultures and systems that enable it — and those that eliminate it. How?

● Strong leadership: clear leadership from the highest levels that gender balance is a strategic priority for the organisation.

● Committed leaders: aligned senior teams that are both convinced that change needs to happen, and equipped to lead it.

● Skilled and accountable managers: managers who are skilled at managing across gender differences — and focus on it as an organisational priority.

Denying the existence of differences between men and women was a useful phase we had to go through. It got us to here. Now that the reality of gender has changed, so should our approach. Managers — both male and female — should embrace the differences and get everyone to succeed.

–

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is CEO of 20-first, one of the world’s leading gender consulting firms
Copyright Harvard Business Review 2020/ Distributed by New York Times Syndicate