The long struggle for equality
In vielen Unternehmen werden Frauen und Männer auch heute noch ungleich behandelt. Doch fördern auch immer mehr Firmen die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung gerade von Frauen. IAN MCMASTER sprach darüber mit der emeritierten Professorin LINDA SCOTT.
Many organizations now have diversity programmes as an attempt to reduce gender inequality. But you say that “when you look past the show of ‘diversity planning’ in big companies, most employers are doing nothing at all to help women advance”. You say managers should be “evaluated and incentivized on their diversity achievements”. Is this the way to go now?
I think something like that is necessary, because what we’re not doing right now is working on the men’s side of this. And I don’t think we can solve it until we’re willing to look at that. This is not just about the women not being good enough, and it’s not about the women making poor choices. It’s about the men — some of the men — resisting diversity.
I have my doubts about how effective diversity programmes are in many cases because there isn’t the commitment from men. The idea of incentivizing is taken from a report by Mckinsey that found resistance in the ranks and especially amongst middle managers, who don’t really care what the CEO wants. And they just don’t do it. And so, the only way you would be able to get the men to change would be with a whip or a treat. And I rather think the treat is better.
Another concept that is very popular in organizations at the moment is that of “unconscious bias” (see 4/2018). But you say the concept is being misused.
Right. It is accurate that we all make choices that are unfair because we have unconscious biases that are basically shortcuts in how we make choices. But those conditions that led us to make those choices are rooted in a culture of inequality. That’s where we learned them. I think its dishonest to say that it’s all unconscious bias — and to chalk up to unconscious
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bias cases that are conscious, overt and intentional. I also think the concept of unconscious bias has given companies a way out that’s acceptable to the media. I think they know quite well that there are people in their ranks who are just bigots. I know because I’ve met them. These bigots take whatever information comes to them and squeeze it around until it fits and justifies their prejudices.
You say that the question now is whether we have “the discipline and commitment to change our self-seeking status-obsessed warrior-chimp economy and create a different kind of future”. Do we? I wouldn’t have written the book if I did not believe it was a doable deal. The question is not so much whether we can or whether we should, it’s whether we will take the act of will. And that act of will is more than just recognizing and beginning to take action. It is going to mean standing up to people who do not want to take this path. And that would be people who are very much interested in continuing the current structure. I think it’s something that very well could happen because I think people might join together to want to do it. That’s my hope, of course. But I also think what we’re seeing right now in the pandemic, and also with the rise of faux-populism, is the unbridled greed and the corruption and the total absence of empathy or social responsibility that comes with that. So, it’s pretty scary right now, you know, with Trump and Putin and all the rest of it.