According to Amy Diehl and Leanne Dzubinski, barriers women face in the workplace can include male privilege, insufficient support and devaluation.FangXiaNuo/Getty Images
Content from The Globe’s weekly Women and Work newsletter, part of The Globe’s Women’s Collective. To subscribe, click here.
When Amy Diehl and Leanne Dzubinski met at a conference on gender equality, they discovered their research in, respectively, higher education and faith-based non-profits, dovetailed. They decided to collaborate, extending their research into other work sectors, trying to understand what they call “the complex and insidious phenomenon of gender bias.” They found the myriad issues women face in the workplace could be narrowed down to six core barriers.
“These barriers are more than a glass ceiling – they are glass walls surrounding women. No matter which way a woman turns, the ever-present but invisible barriers impeded her,” Ms. Diehl, a consultant, and Prof. Dzubinski, of Biola University, write in Glass Walls.
They argue that gender bias is a systemic issue embedded in workplace cultures that were created by men for men to suit their lifestyles and needs – but not women’s. As a result, women can’t fully contribute and are limited in their ability to reach positions of influence by these barriers.
Read about the six barriers women face in the workplace.
Barbie’s feminism 101 is no ordinary feat
“Did your audience applaud after THE speech? Mid-movie, spontaneously? Mine sure did,” says columnist Joanna Schneller.
“If you’ve seen Barbie, or pretty much any social media since the film came out July 21 to thunderous, record-breaking, continuing box office and critical success, you know the monologue I’m talking about: the one that impassioned mom/Mattel employee Gloria (America Ferrera) delivers as a kick in the hotpants to Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), who’s upset by sexism. The speech that’s flooding social media, that influencers are posting on their vision boards. The one that, according to the film’s writer/director, Greta Gerwig, made even the men on set cry.
“It is an excellent speech. I won’t print the whole thing, but here’s the gist: ‘It’s literally impossible to be a woman … We have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.’ You have to be thin but not too thin, have money but not ask for it, lead without squashing others’ ideas.”
Read Joanna Schneller’s take on the “complex Tao of Barbie that Gerwig walks (on tiptoe) throughout the film.”
Percentage of women in tech has largely stagnated for 20 years – this must change
“One of the most positive and dramatic shifts over the past half-century has been the rise of women in the workplace, where women comprise almost half of the Canadian work force,” says Viet Vu, manager of economic research at The Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University. “And yet, one type of work has been particularly impervious to this trend: tech. Twenty years ago, in 2001, 21 per cent of tech workers across Canada were women. Now, in 2023, the number has only increased to 24 per cent.
“A common way many (often men) in tech have rationalized the dearth of women in tech is to lean in on the idea of ‘preferences’ – maybe women just aren’t interested in pursuing technical careers, preferring more ‘emotional’ work. I actually do think women consider preferences in choosing a career, but not because of any inherent gender differences. Women choose to not work in tech for practical reasons.”
Read more from Viet Vu on how unwelcoming, toxic environments are keeping women out of tech.
In case you missed it
Non-traditional jobs – like custom bike-building – attract more women to the skilled trades
As a professional photographer, Danielle Schön preferred the darkroom, working with her hands to manipulate the image rather than capturing it in the field. Gravitating toward tactile work, she took a nighttime welding class as a hobby. Sparks flew, and she found her calling.
Ms. Schön continued to earn more qualifications, but everything clicked when the long-time cycling enthusiast took a bike frame building course with Paul Brodie, a renowned Vancouver mountain bike builder.
After apprenticing with Mr. Brodie and another builder in Toronto, she decided to open her own studio. Now, as the owner/operator of Schön Studio in Squamish, B.C., she’s one of the few female bike frame builders in North America.
Ms. Schön’s work is an example of the less traditional welding opportunities in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. She remembers how early in her career, a security guard tried to stop her from entering a job site.
“He said, ‘You are too pretty to be a welder,’” she says. “I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just left.”
Read the full article.
How to build a business as a mom with small children
When Jennifer Singh discovered she was pregnant with her first child in 2015, it was an especially significant occasion. She and her husband had been struggling to conceive for three years.
Two weeks after receiving the happy news, Ms. Singh learned that she had been laid off from her government job. Perhaps surprisingly, she only felt relief – the job had required an hours-long commute from her home in Brampton and she had a limited support system with no family living nearby.
Within the next two years, Ms. Singh would have another child. But in that span of time, she also began to build her own business, one that would enable her to care for her kids while also performing fulfilling work.
“I thought, ‘How do I design a business that’s going to work for me as a mom?’” recalls the journalist turned entrepreneur. “I was in a situation where I was asking myself, ‘Do I make money or do I go pick up my kids?’”
Read the full article.
Ask Women and Work
Question: I have two sons – aged two and four – and a very busy household! I really like my workplace and the work that I do, but I’m finding myself struggling to manage a full-time job with everything else going on in my life. I would prefer to work part-time, but I don’t want to leave my job. Truthfully, part-time jobs aren’t very common in my industry. How can I convince my employer that going part-time will actually benefit us both?
We asked Allison Venditti, founder, Moms at Work, to tackle this one:
Many people consider moving to part-time work, so this is not a request that employers are unfamiliar with, but there are a few things you can do to make it work for both of you.
First, employers are often hesitant to make permanent changes in roles and responsibilities, so any changes you propose should be on a trial basis. This way, if things aren’t going well or you find you made a mistake on the days or number of hours, you aren’t stuck. Propose a temporary change (six months) with check-in times at three and five months to make sure the switch is working for both you and your employer.
Second, do the heavy lifting of how this will work. Create a calendar for the trial period indicating which days you will be at work and which days you will be off. For a temporary change (like the proposed trial), you can use vacation days or unpaid days for your days off.
Next, if you must move part of your workload to others, you can also propose how that work will be distributed. Who is going to cover questions on your days off? Who is going to take on a specific project? The fewer barriers there are, the more likely it is to work for everyone.
The final thing I ask people to do as they move to part-time work is to set hard boundaries. You need to make sure that your part-time role is really a part-time role and not you continuing to do a full workload while getting half the pay. You will need to set out-of-office notifications on your days off and make sure you are handing off projects so you are not sending emails on the days you are not working.
Part-time work is not common in many industries, and it is something that a lot of people are looking for as they move towards retirement or when they have caregiving responsibilities. (Moms at Work is actually working on a free resource that will include helpful information all about part-time work, and we’ve launched a survey to gather information about the issues people are facing around this mode of working.)
For employers, allowing employees to work part-time is a great way to retain institutional knowledge and to keep their female talent pipeline strong at stages where they would otherwise lose incredible staff. Part-time work doesn’t have to be forever, but companies that support their staff during these life stages will gain a loyal team and attract talent from other employers who may not have been as supportive.
Submit your own questions to Ask Women and Work by e-mailing us at GWC@globeandmail.com.
