How women talk about discrimination in our own careers matters
Artist: Steve McCarthy (Fine Acts)
It’s 2024, and it is still not easy to be a woman who claims space by asserting her expertise and demands to be treated equitably.
I started writing this post last October, which is Women’s History Month in Canada, a time where we are reminded to recognize the remarkable achievements and enduring struggles of women across the country. That effort and courage has brought us far and there is certainly cause to celebrate; there are more women in leadership positions across more industries than ever before, and in my own line of work advancing a STEM economy in which women thrive, the percentage of women leaders in the field has increased, albeit slowly.
But as I continue to learn and reflect, in many of my conversations with accomplished women, I hear some variation of this claim: “I have not experienced discrimination in my career.” Usually there is careful emphasis on “I” or “my” as a disclaimer, but the rest is consistent.
Two decades of this work, and it still surprises me. I am curious about this statement because the data highlighting gender disparities across the spectrum of workplaces and professions in Canada is copious and undeniable. There are glaring, significant, and persistent systemic gaps everywhere.
For example, statistics from 2019 showed that women represented just 19.2% of all board of directors positions. In a Canadian labour force where women make up approximately 47%, they still earn, on average, 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The numbers are worse for Indigenous and immigrant women who earn 82 and 80 cents respectively. And it’s not like these numbers are hard to find — the data is open-source.
When we look at STEM, the situation is even less inspiring. Among people aged 25-64, women represented just 30.8% of Canadians working with a STEM credential. Immigrant women represent a majority of that workforce at 52%, yet they face the worst outcomes in under-employment, unemployment and the wage gap, even when compared to Canadian born women and immigrant men. Governing over all of this, a quick glance at politics tells us that almost 70% of Canada’s parliamentarians are men.
I understand that different identities are treated with varying levels of protection and privilege, but with all of this exclusion staring us in the face, why is it that some women feel compelled to deny discrimination and systemic barriers when we know we are immersed in larger systems that are without a doubt operating in ways that are disadvantageous to us?
Systemic discrimination and its many shapes
As with many cultural issues, why women deny experiencing systemic discrimination is a combination of many social forces.
Fear is one of the more obvious. Some women fear that acknowledging discrimination could lead to career setbacks and social isolation. These concerns are very real, with studies showing that speaking out can result in retaliation and/or professional stigmatization.
Then we have one of the more insidious features of systemic discrimination — internalizing it as weakness or gaps in our own abilities and performance. This internalized self-doubt lets the system itself; and those perpetrating its worst aspects, entirely off the hook. Instead of calling out discrimination, women blame themselves. How can we be victims of discrimination if we are the ones at fault?
Which brings us to the normalization of perceived gender roles. These societal expectations put pressure on women to downplay discrimination. We might even feel compelled to project an image of strength and resilience because to do otherwise, to acknowledge that yes, discrimination is extant and rampant, might make us appear weak and vulnerable in the eyes of our colleagues.
One can see how each of these aspects feeds into the other, fueling a culture of silence and denial that allows the status quo to continue on, changing only by degrees, and only when the pressure to change becomes overwhelming. We are unintentionally upholding inequality when we remain silent. Worse, we are providing a platform for the myth that we’ve solved gender bias in the workplace when we state that systemic discrimination has not affected us. A 2020 research paper by McKinsey & Company shows that nothing could be further from the truth, with only 28% of C-suite executives being women.
The consequences of our silence
If history has taught us anything, it’s that silence is a privilege that comes at a cost. I understand the motivation and the choice not to speak up. But it’s time for all of us to reckon with the damage that it’s doing to progress in gender equity.
When we claim not to have experienced discrimination, we are unintentionally invalidating the experiences of those who have faced gender-based bias. It’s widespread and affects each individual differently, making it crucial to acknowledge diverse experiences. If we don’t, we lose so much in the way of opportunity cost, and perspective sharing on the way to building equitable work cultures.
We also can’t forget the intersectionality of gender discrimination. Often it’s intertwined with factors like race, sexual orientation, immigration, and socioeconomic status. Failure to acknowledge intersectionality obscures the complexity of the issue, limiting how we understand and address the myriad layers of discrimination that many women face.
One person’s good fortune to not have experienced or perceived discrimination in their careers simply cannot overwrite the vast majority of women who have. If we’re going to see real and effective change we must change our way of thinking, and how we talk about it out loud in the world.
Moving from silence to solidarity
My own learning curve has been long and steep in finding clear language and critical thinking skills to identify how systems create particular barriers for both entry and success for diverse people. So when successful women say “I did not experience discrimination,” I wonder if what they’re really saying is that they didn’t notice anything unusual. How they were treated was a feature of the status quo; nothing strange, nothing to write home about. This is a telling sign of what we have been led to believe about what women should expect.
So as we take some time to reflect on goals for the new year, I urge all of us to make a collective new year’s resolution that would help raise our expectations for what we as women deserve — not just for ourselves, but for all women.
We need to reject the scarcity-mindset and tap into empathy and humility as we listen to those with whom we may not share life experiences. So instead of saying “I didn’t experience discrimination”, we can open the discussion wide by saying, “I am still learning how the status quo leaves different people behind, and while I may not have experienced many barriers personally, I feel it's important to do my part in questioning how fair our systems really are for all women."
In Gwendolyn Brooks' words, "we are each other’s harvest." Let's make sure our success stories don’t inadvertently close doors, and instead validate more women to enter, contribute, and celebrate the making of our shared history.
Fired up and curious to learn more about building shared power in 2024?
Join me at our Group Chat Salon On Thursday February 1st, for a virtual community discussion with Surabhi Jain from Women in Power. Register here!
Group Chat is a candid dialogue series for women who are serious about their leadership and community legacy. Equal parts celebration, curiosity, and accountability, these discussions will raise our shared expectations about what women deserve, what this moment in history asks of us, and how we can do this hard work with collective joy.
The overwhelm is real, but you are not alone. Join us.
Saadia Muzaffar is founder and president of TechGirls Canada (TGC), a national not-for-profit working to advance a STEM economy where women THRIVE.