So while we applaud women leaders in business, we can’t help but ask: What about all the others? What about women workers like us?
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As the three women who comprise the totality of WBJ’s reporting staff, we understand all too well what it’s like to work in an industry where leadership positions are disproportionately filled by men. In Central Massachusetts, where all editors and editorial leads at organizations which provide daily news coverage of the region are white men, it’s par for the course.
WBJ’s annual Women in Leadership edition, then, puts us in an odd position. We find ourselves covering an equity issue where, in our own careers, leadership equity does not apply.
In this issue of WBJ, and as part of our ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion coverage, we cite research showing gender disparities in company boardrooms and executive offices. We quote businesspeople and academics extolling the virtues of cultivating a diverse leadership team. We platform women who break through glass ceilings, all the while sharing these findings and stories from our very own bell jar.
This leaves us grappling with uncomfortable truths.
The thing about women in leadership, as a topic, is it’s only part of the story. It assumes women are a monolithic group with fundamentally similar experiences and, often, ignores the intersectionalities of identity and lived experience separating women – including the three of us – from each other.
Additionally, for every man holding an executive or boardroom-level position, likely a fleet of non-male subordinates prop him up. The 2021 Women in the Workplace report from international consultancy McKinsey & Co. found while nearly half of entry-level positions at surveyed companies are filled by women, they comprise less than a quarter of C-suite roles. And for every 100 men promoted to first-level management positions, only 86 women receive the same boost.
So while we applaud women leaders in business, we can’t help but ask: What about all the others? What about women workers like us?
We can explain until we’re blue in the face, citing studies from every corner of academia and beyond, the positive impact diverse leadership has on workplace culture, company morale, business practices, community standing, and deliverables. But if we’re still using the value of diversity in leadership as a means to argue for equity in the first place, we’ve already lost.
In the same way we do not consider ourselves to be “women writers,” we aspire to a professional culture wherein women in leadership is de facto, so mundane and matter of fact the idea of celebrating it at all would be considered absurd.
