Lessons - Navigating Gender Bias and Ageism | Bonnie Marcus - Author of Not Done Yet

In this lessons episode, we dive into the challenges women face, particularly the double burden of gender bias and ageism as they age. You'll learn how these issues impact career growth and financial security and explore strategies for creating a more inclusive workplace. Discover practical tips on addressing unconscious bias, in hiring and fostering a supportive environment for women at all career stages. Let's fast forward to what you're living and breathing every single day, which is both helping women in promotion and achieving greater success in their career, but also helping women over a certain age group. Let's talk about that a little bit, because I think that's what you're coaching and you're consulting and you're mentoring really revolves around. What are the issues that we see? Let's just describe the issues that we see, so there's a lot of conversation about this, but I think that somebody who works in this can really nail what issues our women are confronted with. What are some things that perhaps men take for granted that don't come so easy to women? Let's talk through some of those, and then we can speak about some of the fixes and the solutions that you probably highlight in the book, obviously, but also some of the things that you teach over to people. Okay, so first of all, women for decades have been dealing with gender bias in the workplace. We don't have the same opportunities for advancement. We lack sponsorship. We are not paid equally, and we also suffer the motherhood penalty. Now, of course, there's more flexibility, there's parental leave in some cases, better maternity leave, but certainly when I was entering the workplace and the women who were over 50 that didn't happen. So for decades, we've been dealing with gender bias and trying our best to deal with that and still be successful in the workplace. What happens when women start to show visible signs of aging? They now suffer what I call the double whammy of both gender bias and ageism. And what happens is that women are marginalized. Nobody seeks out their opinions anymore. They're not invited to key meetings. Often they're portfolios. Their workload is redistributed. And that's based on our society's emphasis on looks, it's called lookism, right? Our looks, the pressure to be young and attractive. And it's really based on whether or not our visible changes, which infuriates me, right? What happens is men, of course, have ageist issues as well. But research, especially from a catalyst, there's a trend brief that shows that women face ages a much earlier than men. And it is based solely on appearance. So we are much more vulnerable then to being not only marginalized but pushed out. And then the issue becomes okay, now you're over 50, you're being pushed out, then it's so much more difficult to get another job. So the women that I interviewed for this book, some of them were, you know, had panic attacks that people are going to find out how old they are. And they have Botox and fillers. And I live surgery in hopes that they can extend their career trajectory. And survive for longer. I mean, this issue, I think, is beneath the radar. And I think a lot of people don't understand how this affects women's financial security as well as their career trajectories. And one reason why I wrote the book is I wanted to bring more awareness to this issue. I wanted to give women a voice to deal with it and also the tools. And my question to you is, why is this not more prevalent or why is this not more discussed? Because if you look at the topical issues of the day, they sort of run in different trends, like where, of course, you have to have unrepresented minorities to have more of a seat at the table and fill more executive positions. And then now we're talking about women who we would have hoped at this point in God forbid 2021, there wouldn't be as many issues. But I guess my point is like, how do you get this message out there? How do you, how do you, I don't mean, it's not insensitive, but prove that this is something that is still relevant because I think it slips people's minds. I think that you see it, but it's not in your face all the time. I just, you know, I just, I've had lots of conversations about a lot of underrepresented populations. And I think that, yes, I've seen, especially in sales, I'm in sales, I'm in tech, in every job I've ever worked, there's definitely an under-representation of women. But I don't know why that is. It just seems like less apply, less look for the jobs, let, you know, and it doesn't seem like it's something that me as an executive has the ability to fix. I know obviously I'm speaking, I'm saying I do have the ability to fix it, but how do I actually fix it when I'm in that position? And I don't see the women stepping forward to take those jobs that I would give them if they applied, or am I just being completely ridiculous in saying that? I don't know. You're the expert. Well, I'm not going to call you ridiculous. You're the host of this podcast. And you have, you know, you have your own, you have your own experience in this area. I mean, you know, for, for decades, women have suffered in tech. And for those who did go to grad school in STEM fields, many of them drop out, you know, because they, they're suffering due to the gender bias. And I've had clients in STEM fields where it is so male dominated, the gender bias is still so prevalent, the unequal, the unfair playing field that they, you know, they'll go someplace else. They'll, they'll change industries. But to your point about bringing more awareness to it, I talk about this issue. And I draw some, some similarities to what it was like for women before the Me Too movement, dealing with sexism in the, in the workplace. Women were silent. They felt ashamed to come forward and talk about any kind of sexual harassment or abuse. They didn't feel that there was a safe environment for them to have these kinds of discussions. And they certainly didn't have any kind of legal backing to, to really do so. And it was off everybody's radar because women were silent. I find the same things happening with gendered ageism. Right now, women have been, especially the women I interviewed, who insisted they be anonymous, by the way, in the book, for the most part, are ashamed to come forward and say, you know, what I'm 62 years old and I'm, I'm being subjected to these demeaning remarks and that they don't want to call attention to themselves for fear of backlash. They don't feel safe. There isn't a safe environment to talk about it. And so it's, it's really off the radar. And I think that bringing more awareness to it, having gendered ageism be included in unconscious bias training and in corporate trainings to help people understand that this is a real issue for women is important. As well as, you know, how do you deal with it on an individual basis? Because any of our bias starts with us first. So that, you know, the point that I, I discussed before, I, I agree with everything. I agree with absolutely everything you're saying. I was just thinking, I've been in the position where I've been hiring. And I guess what I, what I'm trying to say is, how do, how do I change so that I can find more candidates that I can bring in so I can even the playing field? And if that's something or a tool or a strategy that a company can adopt, maybe it's bringing into the unbi, like the, the bias training and the, well, the unconscious bias training. I mean, part of that bias training, Scott, it's usually to do an assessment of all your policies and practices. Some of that may be the way you word your, your job searches. And this can be really an eye opener when somebody else objectively looks at it and says, well, you know, you're really the way you're using that word that words, words are important and it's kind of subtle. But so if you're not getting those applicants, I think that's the first place to look. And a lot of corporations that go through bias training and unconscious bias training, those are some of the things that they look at. And some of them are subtle, you know? No, I think that that's a great, it's great advice. And that's something that, you know, I'm going to internalize as well and just in the things that I do when I'm looking to hire for roles and whatnot because I've, I've just noticed like without even paying attention to it, when I put out a role for a sales leader or a sales individual, it's like 99% male. And I think most, I think most leaders would love, would love more, would love more females brought into the workforce or so many benefits to bringing people that don't have that traditional sales, bro culture, that's not a positive culture for any organization. But how do you get rid of that if you find that 99% of the applicants are all fitting that mold? And you're right, it's how do you word the job searches? How do you represent yourself as a company? How do you conduct the interviews screening? Who's doing the interviews in the screening? Are you bringing up the right point? But it's something that, you know, people don't think they have a bias until someone else points it out, right? And so that's really important. One of the things that I talk about a lot in the book is to do some self-reflection and identify your own bias because that's the, I mean, for instance, gendered ageism, ageism in general, so ingrained in our culture that we don't realize that we've internalized a lot of this stuff. And I recognize, certainly, when I was writing this book and going through, you know, how to coach women to do this, I realized, well, gee, I mean, you've got a whole list of ages, things that you're dealing with as well. So I think it's important to really start there. And from a company perspective, the leaders need to do that. They need to, you know, not just gendered ageism, but gender bias and some of the things that you're talking about. How do the leaders feel about these things? What are some of the biases that they hold? And how does that affect their communication, their behavior, as well as policies and practices in the business? Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.