Catalyst Blog

Monica Palacios, the famous comic and writer, has navigated various labels over the course of her career. On stage, Palacios riffs:  “When I was born, I was of Mexican-American persuasion. Then I became Chicana. Then I was Latina. Then I was Hispanic. Then I was a Third World member (my mom loved that). Then I was a woman of color. Now I’m just an Amway dealer. And my life is happening.”

Her comments are in jest but the underlying meaning rings true: unique identities are blurred when society puts a label on an entire group. But a person’s gender, race and sexual orientation are part of his or her identity—part of what makes a person valuable to an employer.

“For whatever reason, people assume I am black, but I am also Latina,” a bi-racial friend told me recently.  “When a Latina group was forming at my company, no one even asked me if I wanted to join it!”

Recognizing the fact that broad labels can unintentionally exclude some individuals, Catalyst recently renamed one of our main research areas. The areas formerly called Women of Color in the U.S. and Visible Minorities in Canada are now called Diverse Women & Inclusion. Deeper layers of identity among women—especially in global contexts—can involve class, sexual orientation, caste, disability, nationality, and immigrant status. The new term Diverse Women & Inclusion was intended to cover all of these particular factors in a more sensitive and inclusive way.

And that’s what it’s all about.

Careless labels can engender blatant stereotyping. More than a decade ago, Catalyst released a groundbreaking report on the way managers perceive women from diverse backgrounds. Latinas reported being stereotyped as lazy or too focused on family, citing managers who consistently underestimated their talents and capabilities because they spoke English with an accent.  Black women reported facing stereotypes about being too direct. They described having to worry about whether the braids in their hair contributed to a perception that they were too radical or too bold. Asian women reported being stereotyped as passive “China dolls.”

In more recent Catalyst research, LGBT women discussed various dimensions of discrimination in Canada. “As a lesbian woman, I have sometimes had to fend off occasional stereotypes of lesbian women as all butch and muscular and ungainly—I’m none of these,” said one employee. Roughly a quarter of the LGBT women reported that their manager was not comfortable interacting with them.

These attitudes may explain why diverse women are so poorly represented at the top in Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, the most recent year for which data is available diverse women held 1.7% of corporate officer positions and only 1.0% of top earner positions. I’ve talked a lot about the glass ceiling, but for diverse women the ceiling is concrete. To fix this, workplaces need to embrace, develop and leverage their diverse workforce.

Catalyst is committed to representing the full spectrum of women worldwide. To do so, we’ve updated our own labels. The question is: are you working to change yours?

I’m happy to announce that after nearly 50 years of changing women’s lives, Catalyst has accomplished its goal of total gender parity and will shut its doors. Thank you all! We couldn’t have done it without you.

The latest Catalyst research reveals that women now comprise 50.3% of Fortune 500 CEO slots and 49.8% of Fortune 500 board seats. The gender pay gap has virtually disappeared: women earn, on average, only 0.4% less than men. And since our latest study on inequity between women and men MBA grads, companies have taken serious action. The nation’s leading companies have recalibrated their practices based on merit, not gender. Women MBAs now start at the same level, earn the same amount of money, and are promoted as frequently as equally qualified men. Not surprisingly, job satisfaction among these women is now roughly the same as that of their male colleagues!

I was excited to see that Time marked this historic moment by honoring American “Women of the Year.” The magazine cited the economic downturn as the reason for overwhelming male engagement in gender initiatives and the subsequent surge in workplace equality. “The recession brought a kind of enforced enlightenment,” extolled Time. “Husbands badly needed their wives’—or daughters’—paychecks to help support the family.”

To help society make the transition, Catalyst has earmarked its remaining FY2010 operating budget for a series of post-parity workshops. I will be chairing “Managing Your Company’s Record Profits: A How-To,” “All Aboard!: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Women on Board,” and “Double Your Income—Double Your Fun!: Enhanced Quality of Life in the Post-Parity Age.”

It’s been a quite a journey, and a successful one. Or at least it would have been, if it weren’t April Fool’s Day!

OK, back to reality. But before we go there, imagine a world in which women and men were valued equally at work. An environment in which gender stereotyping wasn’t holding women back. A place in which women and men earned an equal amount for doing the same work. What would this world look like to you?

While the Fortune 500 and post-MBA facts above are made-up, the Time article is not. On January 5, 1976, the magazine featured “Women of the Year” on its cover. The accompanying article soberly concluded: “American women, if they have not arrived, are in the process of arrival. Just how far they will go—and how fast—is not totally clear, for women are themselves altering the destination, changing it from a man’s world to something else.”

More than 30 years later, we still are. Although we’ve edged closer to parity, Catalyst remains open for business. And those post-parity workshops will just have to wait.

Clicking through the news last night on my laptop I was struck again by the obvious. Despite the gains women have made over the past 50 years, I realized it still looks very much like a man’s world.

One need look no further than images of captains of finance testifying on Capitol Hill, senators sparring over the health care bill, world leaders at G20, front page photos from our nation’s (remaining) daily papers and the many company spokespeople and “talking heads” that fill our airwaves.

What’s wrong with these pictures? They’re mostly guys!

These powerful images reinforce the perception that men rule the world— that it’s the natural state of things. Here’s a quick test: close your eyes and picture the image of a leader? Who do you see: a male or female? For Alan Murray of The Wall Street Journal, only men come to mind. Have countless images of men in power created a self-fulfilling prophecy by making it seem normal— to both women and men— that only men should lead?

In 2010, of course, that’s no longer true. Today, women comprise close to 50% of the US labor force and control or influence over 70% of the consumer purchasing decisions in America. That includes choices about spending on cars, financial services, health care and so on. Clearly, women rule in the marketplace. So why shouldn’t they rule in companies that produce the goods and services they buy?

Frankly, pictures with no (or very few) women should strike us as just as out of step with the times as the linebacker shoulder pads worn by Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver in the 80′s classic, Working Girl. Or floppy bow ties. Or floppy disks.

One time I spoke at a technology conference in Beijing where I was the only woman of 13 speakers. The majority of the audience—several hundred—were male.  I opened my speech with a famous quote from Mao’s Little Red Book, “Women hold up half the sky!” Then I asked, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

The audience laughed. But they got it. And I guess that’s the point. There are men who get it— in part, because we show them— but real progress is when they see it unprompted.

Only 15% of board seats and 3% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies are women. And women make up only 17% of the House and Senate. Perhaps more diverse imagery online, on TV and in our nation’s newspapers could lead to more diverse workplaces, boardrooms, and even governments. After all, if you don’t see diversity— if you don’t see women included and leading, too— what do you really see?