“Is there really gender discrimination against women in the workplace?”

A friend of mine Ki took me to his favorite Japanese restaurant for a lunch. As we sat down I started talking about the event I attended a couple days ago. The event was two days workshop for female founders and a truly inspiring event.

Suddenly my friend Ki who is a male and software engineer in Silicon Valley asked me. “Jiwon, I don’t know how to ask, but do you really feel like you are discriminated against your gender? Because I never thought my female colleagues at work are less competent than any of my male colleagues. I don’t treat them differently and haven’t witnessed any discrimination. So, why are there so many talks about gender discrimination in Silicon Valley? ”

I was intrigued. I didn’t think anybody from my work places discriminated against my gender either, but there always has been something else that has bothered me.

“Ki, I don’t think it’s you or other male employees, but rather the lack of female employees, female manager, and especially female founders in our workplaces is bothering me.”

Ki was listening and I continued.

“Well, let me tell you why this is a problem to me at the least from my 13 years work experience as a female employee.”

1. Lack of Female Employees: when you are a minority.

“Being a minority is hard. You constantly think about how to blend in and being accepted. It is great if you finally found a way to get assimilated while being true to yourself. But do you know what is so not great? Getting burnt out from trying to be someone else and drifting away from your goals.

My previous jobs come in different sizes from Fortune 500 to a small start-up. On average, the female employee ratio had never been higher than 25% in my workplaces (if you go to an engineer team, the female employee ratio will probably go down to less than 10%). With that number, it is obviously easier to find a successful role model who is a male and the company culture seems to be built around him. I remember reading books with a title something like “how to work like a man” hoping to learn how to fit in the male dominant culture and learn the secret of success. But you know what there is not many (if not zero) books about how to work like a woman. Have you read any books, which tells you how to work like a woman?

It gets worse with being a working mom. Almost 99.999% my working mom friends are under enormous stress not to work as a mother. She is expected to be professional and effortless when it comes down taking care of her family. It seems like the less she appears to be a mom, the greater professional she appears to be in her job. We don’t discount any male employee’s professionalism because he is a father. Why is not the case with a woman employee?

When we are minority, our culture does not seem to be understood but discounted. Imagine that if we have equal amount of gender ratio participants at work, our working culture and expectation of a great professional would be no longer based on “how to work like a man”. It would be okay to be a woman and okay to be a mom. No one will perceive you less because of your gender. We will be free to work as who we are and can stay focused accomplishing our professional goals as much as we would like to.

2. Lack of Female Managers: when 90% boss is the opposite gender of yours.

“I don’t know about your workplaces, but most people tend to hang out with the same gender of their own. This applies to our bosses too. Maybe he feels more comfortable to hang out with the same gender or wants to stay far away from any potential sexual harassment claims. Whatever the reason he was holding onto, it did a good job to disconnect the female employees from the workforce. Sounds extreme?

I once worked for a small team and I was the only female employee. The manager often told a sexual joke and shared brutally honest his male perspectives about women. It was funny sometimes but most of time it was awkward how it reminded me of my gender when I wasn’t even aware of it till then. Finally I asked him to stop, but he just laughed it off. Did he think I was enjoying his jokes? What about the rest of the team members who were laughing along? Did they enjoy the jokes as well? I am not sure, maybe it was innocent enough that the manager was simply telling a joke and I happened to have no interest in his joke. The problem was his insensitivity for inclusion pushed me away from him, the team and the work as well.

Managers are in a critical position as to be a great mentor who can help employees with the next career development and growth opportunities. If he spends more time with male employees and even worse pushes away female employees with his insensitivity, the power of mentorship is no longer accessible to all genders. Now imagine 80% or 90% managers in your office is man, the chance of mentorship becomes very thin for female employees. Don’t you think it is a dangerous idea we have a single gender dominates that important position? Certainly I am not suggesting to divide a company into team men versus team women. However we can bring more diversity in our managerial teams that can greatly affect our female employees to feel safer and more included in the workplace and again able to enjoy accomplishing her career goals and growth.”

3. Lack of Female Founders: where are all my female founders at?

“But more important issue for me is (since I joined entrepreneur world) we are still far short of many inspiring female founders.

In fact, about two years ago Crunch Base released the number of venture-backed companies with female founders in the past five years, and it has been increased by only 8% from 2009 (10%) to 2014 (18%). Even worse if you look closely, the number has been hardly changed since 2012 (17%).

This shortage of female founders brings a couple of problems. First, women start doubting the possibility to be a successful founder. I often have a conversation with my female friends who share their honest feelings how they are afraid of becoming a founder because they think they have to fight a lot harder and give up a lot more as a woman. Men and women we both are afraid of facing new challenges for obvious reasons, but women feel more pressured than men do especially when it comes down with family commitment. If women can experience more gender inclusion in the top leadership positions and see many female founders crushing the world, probably women view workplaces differently and feel natural to actively participate in entrepreneurship.

Second, women do not get much knowledge share how to become a top leader as a woman. Why not getting the success stories from the male founders? Well, I could if my body produces sperms and doesn’t have to carry them for 11 months. Pregnancy is not something every woman wants but it is one of good examples to illustrate the gender difference and how it affects work life regardless of her talents and capability. This is not something male founders like Elon Musk, Evan Spiegel, and certainly not Travis Kalanick can demonstrate to me.

Being a woman, I am looking for a story of successful female founders who share the similar ambitions and struggles of mine. I want to see how she makes the journey to be where she is. To see many of female founders and how they successfully run their businesses, I am encouraged to think I can do that as well. It is not just for men’s world but it is our world too.”

Ki was patiently listening to me showed a lot of nods in understanding but our conversation stopped there as our special lunch arrived. But since I was saying loud, it never got clearer what has been bothering me regarding to the gender inequality.

Gender discrimination or not?

Going back to Ki’s original question if I ever felt discriminated against my gender in workplaces, my initial answer was no because I always thought it was up to me how people would treat me and there is no way I would let anybody look at me differently because of my gender.

Reality? Our C-suit managers are still dominated by a male gender which is 81% in US companies* (2016 LeanIn. Org and McKinsey & Company). Female founders are no more than 17% in the past years. Women still feel more pressured to prioritize family commitment over her career goals. So I am changing my answer from no to yes.

Who to blame for all this? The easy answer would be companies and government. Companies can hire more women and offer them as many as opportunities for their career development. Government can provide a better welfare system for working mom starting with top notch public daycare centers or anything that relieves working mom from feeling pressured to prioritize family commitment. But what we also equally need (if not more) is as many as women who care about her work and career to justify all the efforts we are asking from the companies and government. My hope is we women fight further more by participating in the workforce, continuously sharpening our work skills, taking charge of any leadership opportunities, and demanding for bigger responsibilities until we are completely free to show how fierce we are and can pursue our career goals like there is no limit. I will be finally able to say ‘NO’ to the Ki’s question then.

Sources & Further Reading:

• Women in the Workplace 2016 by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company on the state of women in corporate America. https://womenintheworkplace.com/
• Only 17 Startups Have A Female Founder https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/in-2017-only-17-of-startups-have-a-female-founder/