GENDER BENDERS

SOME SAY gender simply doesn’t matter in the modern workplace, that the old debates about sexism, stereotypes and glass ceilings are just that: out of date and irrelevant. Get over it, get on with the job and develop some gender blindness; we’re in the age of the androgynous worker – or so the thinking goes.

If only life were that simple. Gender blindness is a nice idea in theory, but it’s usually rotten in practice. It undermines efforts to actually offer equal opportunities to women, while reinforcing dangerous stereotypes that encourage corporate inertia. It is time to face up to the reality that bundling topics under the “gender” tag relegates them to the too-hard basket.

If we are to make any progress as a society towards a fairer workplace, with true equality of opportunity rather than lip service, then it’s time to push a number of topics – such as job redesign, flexible work, telecommuting and new career paths – up the business agenda.

Let’s not continue to kid ourselves these topics are gender specific, although women’s work patterns may have helped kick-start the debate. The longer they are designated as fodder for the “diversity” program, the longer they will languish on the margins.

Things certainly weren’t meant to be like this in 2008. Almost 25 years ago the introduction of Sex Discrimination legislation in this country was hailed as a crucial step towards a fairer society. And it went without saying that workplaces that could no longer discriminate on the basis of sex would transform. Affirmative action programs were seen as far too prescriptive for Australian corporate culture, although we never went as far down the road as the US, where quotas were introduced.

A lot of the more overt barriers to women in the workforce have indeed been removed, but without the accompanying surge of women into senior ranks. It seems plenty of old prejudices die hard.

Stereotypes remain well embedded and women generally don’t stand much chance of getting promoted or making leadership positions. That’s why only 3 per cent of CEOs of the ASX top 200 companies are women, and Australian women earn, on average, 16 per cent less than men.

And yet some other factors have become clearer. Men and women, recent studies tell us, have much the same motivation for working, are just as concerned about financial independence, and are just as reliant on their jobs for a range of reasons. But it is also clear that women’s and men’s lives can often pan out in quite different ways. A disrupted career due to caring responsibilities is the most obvious, and by no means only, example of this. And importantly, there’s been a growing realisation that what occurs outside of the workplace has a direct impact on our job performance.

Many organisations, meanwhile, have clung to the dated idea that addressing the so-called “diversity” problem requires a few seminars for senior teams to correct their thinking and vocabulary. Wrong. Studies from the US and Australia, not to mention common sense, shows these efforts are usually token and most fail to make a difference.

Academic and consultant Hannah Piterman’s study “Women in management” found a “level of scepticism among women regarding the effectiveness of diversity strategies to support them through to leadership positions”. For Australian businesses, the incorporation of diversity “continues to be a major challenge”.

The diversity programs that do best are the ones properly resourced and targeted – not through quotas but specific goals – with company-wide progress on a range of measures monitored. These organisations are addressing the workplace they have, not the workplace they wish they had.

For all these reasons, being blind to a person’s gender does no one any favours, just as stereotyping does enormous damage. It doesn’t encourage a change in workplace norms, or make provision for different kinds of work patterns, career options and flexibility.

So maybe it's time to take a leaf from Gen Y's book. The big idea in the gender discussion could be to actively detach the notion of gender from a discussion about a new workplace. This wouldn’t be so much about gender denial as making it clear this important debate is about all workers and not “just women”. That caring is not about exclusively female skills, and succeeding at work doesn't depend on a male style. Perhaps when that happens more of the insidious types of female stereotyping will become easier to dismantle. It’s a circuit breaker that is badly needed.

Catherine Fox is deputy editor of AFR BOSS. Her new book, co-written with Jane Caro, is The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism (UNSW Press).