What actually creates gender equality at work?

Episode 422 | Author: Emilie Aries

Spoiler alert: bossin’ up isn’t enough.

I've spent the last 10 years helping women lean in and boss up - by getting hired, speaking up, leveling up into leadership positions, and negotiating better pay.

Hell, I wrote the book on bossin’ up and have been fortunate enough to travel the world as a speaker and work with countless women’s conferences, employee resource groups, and DEI leaders to try and close the gender leadership gap.

While I am proud of the work we've done over the past decade, the fact of the matter is…it's not enough!

Gender equality progress has stalled

New data from LinkedIn shows that "merely 32% of leadership roles are occupied by women and, "the proportion of women in leadership positions has only increased by 1 percentage point since 2016."

Meanwhile, new data from Pew found that the gender wage gap has basically remained the same for the past 20 years: "In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned... compared to in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men." And that paltry 2% increase is all we have to show for 20 years of progress despite mounting evidence that women are negotiating more often than ever.

IT’S TIME TO MOVE from individual to collective action

Individual-level solutions, like all this asking women to lean in and asking companies to do better…

IT’S 👏 NOT 👏 WORKING! 👏

Look, I'm calling myself out here as much as anyone, because I've spent the last decade unintentionally perpetuating this myth that we can individually change the game through self-advocacy. And don't get me wrong, I love helping women harness their power and leverage it as best as they can, but we're just not making the progress we need when acting alone.

As an organizer, I was taught early on in my career that you must have a clear "theory of change" underpinning any movement-building work. Now more than ever - perhaps due to the fact that the DEI industry is under attack, or that women's rights are under attack, or the fact that I’ve become a mother and had to navigate all the broken social safety nets our society has to offer in the past two years - I just can't keep going the way we've been going.

SO What systemic solutions actually lead to gender equality?

There’s a lot of evidence around what public policies contribute to a more gender-equitable society. When it comes to our work here at Bossed Up, I’m most focused on the policies that contribute to equity for women in the workplace, which include:

Paid Family and Medical Leave

According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, “Paid family and medical leave is an essential step toward finally closing the gender wage gap in the United States.”

To truly advance gender equality, a robust paid family and medical leave program must:

Cover all working people, be gender-inclusive and reflect the reality that families come in diverse forms; 

Cover the range of caregiving needs working people face across the lifespan, including child bonding, personal medical care and family caregiving; 

Be sustainably funded and cost-effective for working people, employers and the government; 

Protect workers against adverse consequences for taking leave; 

And provide meaningful, secure benefits that do not force working people into unnecessary trade-offs between access to leave and a secure retirement, or result in cuts to other essential family programs.

The latest legislation for federally-mandated paid family and medical leave, was just re-introduced this past summer by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and you can learn more via the Center for American Progress’s detailed summary here.

pay transparency & equality laws

More and more research shows that women are asking for raises as much as men, but are less likely to get them. And the seemingly-intractable gender wage gap has barely changed in 20 years. So we know that women asking for more alone is not enough to close the gender wage gap.

So what does work? A growing body of research makes a strong connection between pay transparency reforms and a reduction in the wage gap between men and women.

That’s why I’m so encouraged by the historic Equal Pay for Equal Work law that passed right here in Colorado in 2020 and were strengthened in 2023, which inspired states like New York and California to follow suit shortly thereafter. These laws have resulted in employers being required to list salary ranges on all job descriptions or face pricey fines. These laws don’t just help close wage gaps based on gender and race, they increasing transparency for everyone in the job market.

affordable, quality childcare

Before becoming a mother myself, I didn’t appreciate the fact that access to affordable, quality childcare is an economic issue, not simply a household one.

Early childhood services enable parent’s participation in the workforce - and in a tight labor market like the one many of us face today, unlocking the full potential of everyone who wants to work is absolutely critical.

Unfortunately, our crumbling care economy prevents millions of parents from contributing to the workforce. In 2016 alone, an estimated 2 million parents were forced to make career sacrifices due to problems with child care. And we all know the disproportionate burden mothers faced in 2020, when they exited the paid workforce at alarming rates to prioritize critical caregiving responsibilities that were upended by the pandemic.

elect MORE WOMEN to public office

How do we prioritize these foundational economic & workforce development issues, which are posing systemic barriers to all of us leaning in and bossing up? We must elect more women. Period.

We know that when women run and women win, they tend to govern differently, with an emphasis on issues impacting women, children, and families. But like all leadership positions, women make up a paltry percentage of the political positions at every level of government, holding just one-third of all elected positions, despite comprising over 50% of the population. Women of color are further underrepresented, holding approximately one-tenth of all elected positions.

It’s time to lift - not just climb

For many years here at Bossed Up, I’ve echoed the sentiments of America’s first Black women’s clubs, who coined the motto, “Lifting as we climb.” And I’m proclaiming it right here, right now: we’ve been doing too much climbing and far too little lifting. We haven't done nearly enough to focus on the systemic solutions we need alongside the individual solutions.

And so moving forward, I'm going to be writing a lot more about these elements of the future of work, including how we can all get more involved to help make these policy reforms a reality.

I've always shared how you can advocate for yourself in your career, now it's time we advocate for the changes that can truly deliver on gender equity at work.

Take action

Our new Systemic Solutions page connects you with the policy advocates and organizations who need your support to push these priorities over the finish line. Head to bossedup.org/takeaction to find more information on the systemic solutions that we're advocating for, and I hope you’ll join me in taking action.

I hope that together, Bossed Up can be a part of broader solution-building, coalition-building, and making the systemic progress we need alongside our individual actions and advocacy.