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Women Are Not A Monolith And We Must Stop Treating Them As One

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Organizations have been forming diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) strategies for years, many with little success. This work has been pushed and pulled into different remits and areas, with DE&I leaders being appointed in companies of all sizes. In the first instance, themes and focuses have been formed that have broadly focused on “women” and gender (however, gender is regularly being viewed as a binary selection, which it isn’t). This work has benefited women, however when we dig further into this, it is not all women - it is merely some. It is clear that the main beneficiaries are able-bodied, heterosexual, financially-privileged white women. Why is this and why does this continue to happen?


Where are we right now?

Right now, globally we are at a state of unrest. Our world was and continues to be greatly affected by a global pandemic, which has unsurprisingly disproportionately affected those from marginalized communities.

Black people are 4 times more likely to die from Covid-19, and studies have shown that there are clear reasons for this, from discrimination, healthcare accesses and utilization and occupation. In the U.K., police were 1.8 times more likely to fine Black and Asian people for breaching lockdown rules in comparison to their white counterparts.

When we look at Black women specifically, recent data shows that Black women who get infected with Covid-19 have higher risks of complications and mortality, in comparison to their non-Black counterparts.

This isn’t limited to Covid-19 healthcare. We have seen evictions increase and in this, we’ve seen that Black and non-Hispanic women are two times more likely than white, non-Hispanic men to be behind on rent or mortgage payments, highlighting systemic vulnerability. And the effects span greater than just this pandemic. Systemic racism has affected healthcare, living conditions and opportunity for years. Don’t forget, Black mothers are five times more likely to die during childbirth.

Intersectionality is key here. When we talk about people, they do not fit into neat, little boxes like they do on any kind of application form. We exist in the world as our whole selves, whether people like it or not. There is no ability to separate this. Using myself as an example, I cannot exist as a woman, as a person colour or as someone from a poorer background separately - these are all connected and have created the experience and journey I now have.

This is exactly where we are when we talk about “gender equality.” Too often, organizations and the media try to push a narrative that doesn’t exist. That all women are treated equally.


The focus on “gender equality” isn’t very equal

Over this weekend, CNN Business released an article stating “The US economy lost 140,000 jobs in December. All of them were held by women.” A shocking and attention-grabbing title, which began sharing widely on social media, with many not reading the full piece. White women continued to share, citing gender disparity and the role of women in the pandemic. However, there was a crucial and important detail missing. Can you guess what it was? The 140,000 jobs cut in December 2020 were all held by Black women and Latine women. White women actually made significant gains, as did white men. Latine women representation in the low-paid workforce is twice their share in the workforce overall, with Black women’s share being 1.5 times.

Now, upon reading the title, would you know that? Of course not.

In this instance, the media has been happy to highlight sexism but ignore racism. This is something that happens all too often.

Women of colour, and specifically Black and Latine women, are left to the side, with little to no visibility.

In 2020, Fortune 500 rankings include 37 female CEOs, which was progress from 24 in 2018 and 33 in 2019. We saw a number of articles celebrating this milestone, from NBC, Cision and more. However, only three in the Global 500 are women of color. None of them are Black or Latine. When we aren’t clear about what diversity and inclusion is, how we’re going to tackle it and why, we end up with biased outcomes. Good intentions are not good enough. We have to understand how prioritising only groups that we or senior leadership directly identify with creates an environment of exclusion.

At the beginning of 2021, we saw an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which has resulted in five people dying. Amongst this crowd, there were many white women. Regularly, the media and society as a whole absolves white women of their role in upholding white supremacy because of the benefit of innocence granted to them (as white women specifically). Feminist Giant, Mona Eltahawy writes about this audacious innocence, stating “these women have joined an insurrection, they are still remembered as the best versions of themselves. Women who joined ISIS were never afforded such an audacious innocence.”

We talk about progress on gender equality regularly, however we do not talk enough about the nuance. This is largely due to the uncomfortableness around how race, sexual orientation, disability and socio-economic background, etc play an important role in how we view people in society.


Women are not a monolith

I repeat again - women are not a monolith. We all do not have the same experiences because quite frankly, the world does not work this way. Women of colour are not afforded the same privileges as white women, and Black women are not afforded the same privileges as non-Black women. We must accept this, meaning white women must hold a mirror up to themselves, understanding experiences outside of their own, to truly push for gender equality. We must recognize that the world greatly advantages some whilst simultaneously disadvantaging others. Inclusion without everyone is simply just another form of exclusion.

What we cannot have is this vague, exclusive view of gender equality that so many are happy to rest laurels on.

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