Equity vs. Equality: Musings on International Women’s Day
Clara Zetkin, one of the most influential feminists in late 19th and early 20th century Europe, believed that migrating women out of the isolation and unpaid labor of the home and into the workforce was the first step toward liberation. However, despite Zetkin’s fame, scholarship, and influence, her legacy is largely absent from the conversation about women’s rights and workforce equity. Overshadowed by the “usual suspects,” including Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Sojourner Truth, Zetkin’s contributions to the cause are notably forgotten. However, this week, one of her contributions to women’s history was recognized worldwide. In 1910, Zetkin, a leader in Germany’s Social Democratic Party, founded International Women’s Day to acknowledge women’s contributions outside the home.
In the intervening century, this global event designed to celebrate women’s cultural, political, and socio-economic achievements has sadly and expectedly become commercialized. Companies change their logos, pay big money for sponsorship opportunities, and issue statements lauding women’s contributions to their companies and the world. It’s a bit hollow. If corporations really wanted to walk the talk, they would look internally and focus on creating equity.
“Equity” and “equality” are often confused and conflated. Equality means that each group of people is given the same resources and opportunities. Equity recognizes the differences among groups and provides opportunities necessary for an equal outcome. In other words, equality is giving everyone a pair of shoes. Equity is giving everyone the right size shoes for their feet.
Simply hiring more women will not solve the problem of inequity. Companies must embrace equity as a strategic imperative. Although women comprise more than 50% of the workforce, there persists a dearth of women in positions of leadership. Within the US labor force, college-educated women outnumber college-educated men, yet the more education they obtain, the greater the pay disparity between them and their male counterparts. And, while the shift to hybrid and flexible working practices has given women greater access to work, especially working mothers, equity does not necessarily follow.
While the cycle of workplace inequity is vicious, the cycle of workplace equity is fruitful. When companies hire, compensate, and advance people in an equitable way, they establish a reputation as a fair workplace, which creates positive brand awareness and fuels subsequent recruiting and hiring. Key to achieving workplace equity is the idea of intersectionality. This approach recognizes how someone’s unique characteristics converge to form a personal experience and worldview, which brings both advantages and disadvantages. Creating workplace equity requires addressing both. Intersectionality does not mean giving groups of people special standards or treatment, nor is it “identity politics”; rather, it is an effort to address forms of systematic oppression while considering others.
Leveraging intersectionality is one piece to creating gender equity. The other requires real commitment from senior leaders. Managers should be held accountable for creating diverse representation in their teams.
Goudiard suggests that senior and middle managers be held accountable for creating diverse representation in their teams to create greater equity. “Managers must challenge their own choices when it comes to who they interview for jobs, consider for promotions and assign to high-profile projects,” he says. In 2014, cosmetics company Shiseido made DEI a key pillar of its corporate strategy. Inclusive work policies, process redesign, and upskilling resulted in a 24% increase in the ratio of women leaders.
You’ve come a long way, baby
In the 1960s, tobacco giant Phillip Morris decided to capitalize on second-wave feminism with its “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign for Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed exclusively to women. Yet some 50 years later, the global lack of equity for women is a crisis. As gender parity declines worldwide, the World Economic Forum predicts it will take approximately 132 years to close the gap. I think Clara Zetkin would be outraged.
So on this International Women’s Day, I can’t help thinking of Clara Zetkin and her vision for the future. Clara would be appalled with the present, knowing that women still do not exist as freely, safely, and with as much agency and opportunity as men. If they did, this day would be rendered obsolete.