As the veil of exploitation that clouds the technology industry and its treatment of women continues to unravel with the likes of Uber, 500 Start-Ups, Binary Capital and Google, all fingers point squarely at the men responsible in these organizations. However, if we are going to have a real discussion about the unbalanced representation of women, not just in technology but across every industry around the world, then we as women need to accept some responsibility for the current state of affairs.
My work is focused on leadership development and my passion is working with women. I run several women’s groups that explore the realities of organizational life. While many of the issues discussed are about better access to senior jobs, inability to create work/life integration and executive presence, the most puzzling issue is the role women play in perpetuating the mistreatment of women. The simple question of how many women have female mentors is followed by intense discussion around men being better advocates for women and the fundamental preference to work for men over women.
The stories that exist behind this preference of avoiding female leadership are similar. Female bosses are unnecessarily tough or harsh with their female employees, female bosses make assumptions and therefore do not really listen to their female employees’ needs, or most worrying, female employees look at these role models and think this is not the life they want to lead.
To be clear, this is not an issue of women against women per se. The intentions of these female leaders are likely driven to be constructive. However, they have had to survive in a man’s world, and survival breeds suffering. Alone in their battles, they had to toughen who they were, sacrifice their own needs, and change behaviours in order to survive. This constant sense of threat created behaviors that may serve them but not others well. These survival behaviors then permeate in their leadership style, and feel more exaggerated when around other women. Much like a drill sergeant in the army, these female leaders take it upon themselves to toughen the next generation for the harsh world that lies ahead. However, in this toughening process, these female leaders have inadvertently repelled women from their mentorship and worse, impact their desire to stay engaged in the traditional workforce.
The truth is, when we are required to rally against a common enemy, we unite in our goals. This topic is discussed in my earlier article Trump – the greatest gift to the underrepresented . But this fight instinct is hard to turn off for some women. Almost as though they are operating with PTSD, all the natural capabilities we know women possess due to their neurobiology including more networked and multi-tasking capabilities and better processing of sensorial and emotive information seem to play against them. In trying to preemptively teach their female employees survival behavior, they fail to meet them on an emotional level.
When our public servants like Justin Trudeau appoint a cabinet equally representative of men and women, while Theresa May appoints an all-male parliamentary science and technology committee to explore the issue of stereotypes of women in STEM, we see how this problem propagates on a geopolitical level. Why do we as women sometimes act as our own worst enemy?
The organizational implications are not insignificant. This is not simply a supply and access issue. Organizations need to pay close attention to how they support and form networks for these females employees once they are within their businesses. The question of how can organizations create the kind of environment where women can feel less threatened, more emotionally expressive and more collaborative has been overlooked for too long. Furthermore, consideration on how mentors are being selected and developed is critical. Simply being a woman in leadership should not be the only criteria in making you a role model for other women. Like wise, if as a woman, you are feeling alienated by other women, it is your job to speak out and change that pattern. Yes, men have a role to play in our underrepresentation, but so do we.