Women, Fire and Dangerous Things - Gender in Language and how it impacts biases.

I volunteer with the International Humanistic Management Association and I get to do cool things. One of the things I do for them is interview interesting people about how they apply humanist principles in the workplace. In January 2020 - I got to interview Dan Tyre who is the Chief People Person at Hubspot.

We had a great conversation online - which you can view here: 

Afterwards - because he is really a neat person - we exchanged some emails on gender bias in the language - which came up in the interview.

Here is what I sent him:

There is a really cool book you might want to read on this called Women, Fire and Dangerous Things byGeorge Lakoff. I studied Linguistics in college. The book is basically about how different languages use gender and impose gender on non-gendered things – like in English – boats are female.  Gender categories differ from language to language and culture to culture and we don’t always realize how gender is impacting how we think about things.  The title of the book comes from a language where one of the gender categories is – women/fire/dangerous things.

English has several genders in our language – single male (he), single female (she), single gender neutral (it), and plural (they).   Hindi – in contrast has single male, plural male and single/plural female.  They have no non-gender pronouns. Everything has a gender in the binary and the gender is what conjugates the verb, unlike in English, where the sense of time conjugates the verb. 

In order to discuss a book in Hindi - you would have to know what gender books are in Hindi.  In English – we would call it – "it" because we have a non-gendered pronoun and our verbs don’t require gender to conjugate.  However, we do apply gender to non-gender things in English based on what we attribute to the gender.  For instance, a generic cat – is usually female in English (unless we know the gender).  A generic dog is usually male (good boy) – unless we know the gender.

All languages have gender categories and they all place inanimate objects and animate non-gendered objects into those gender categories and to speak the language – you usually have to understand what the gender category is - in other words, what the traits of the gender are considered to be. In Hindi – you have to know chairs are female – but beds are male.  Or that water is masculine but air is feminine.

It is these gender attributes in the language that cause part of the bias problems we experience and have to work to overcome. In a language where being female is equaled with fire and dangerous things – you would expect women to be treated differently than in a language/culture where women are considered equal to sugar and spice and everything nice.

The same biases impact men and individuals whose gender is not easily defined by the languages gender categories.

It is these implicit biases  - some of which are coded into our languages - that are so difficult to overcome and why ALL of us can benefit from learning more about implicit biases and how they effect our thinking.

I do have a free online course that can help - https://humanistlearning.com/controlling-our-unconscious-bias/

It's time we talk about Pay Parity

Women don't earn as much as men. Shocker. I know. But this pay gap has long term consequences, not just for the women being short shifted, but for society at large.

People interested in humanistic management should to take pay equity seriously.  It is simply not acceptable for people doing the same job to be paid differently. 

One of the reasons I think this happens is because during the hiring process - part of the goal is to get hire labor at the least amount possible. This is why - the game of - not telling people what the position pays so it can be negotiated occurs.

And let's not kid ourselves. Paying as little as we can for labor - is the goal of the current system. The result  of that - is pay inequity.

So let's flip this upside down. And let's start assigning wages to the job - and not to the person doing the job.

This would eliminate all the game playing in hiring. People who need more - won't waste your time if the pay isn't what they want. All the stress of negotiation goes away. Everyone will be happier. If you can afford to pay a certain wage for a job - pay that wage for the job and stop playing salary games.

There are 2 resources I want to share with you.  First - is an interview with Marc Benioff of Salesforce regarding their efforts to create pay equity. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-leading-by-example-to-close-the-gender-pay-gap/

In order to make good on the promise of pay equity - they conducted a pay audit. Found out that they were not paying people equally - and equalized salaries up. Yes - up!   And then, they had to do it again - because pay inequity keeps creeping into their system. Why? Because the hiring and onboarding process - which is geared to getting labor and the lowest possible prices - doesn't lead to pay equity. It leads, by design, to pay inequality.

One way to solve this is to set a price for the position - not for the person. Oh look - I repeated myself. Let's say it again - set a price for the position - not for the person.  Figure out what a fair wage is - and pay it!

The next resource I want to share Paradigm for Parity -https://www.paradigm4parity.com/ - which is dedicated to creating gender parity at all levels of organizations.

Pay and gender parity isn't going to happen by magic. To make it happen - we have to take proactive steps to make it happen. So start having these conversations in your workplace and see if you can make things better - for all employees.

Correcting Cognitive Bias to make life more fair

We all have a sense of fairness. And when we aren't treated fairly - we get cranky.   Whether people acknowledgement or not - we all have biases. And these biases impact our decision making.

One of the impact of this is that women and minorities - just aren't hired for jobs - they probably should be. And I talk to people who say - well - maybe they just aren't as talented - as the men.  But ... there is plenty of research on eliminating gender and minority markers - has a positive impact on "diversity" hiring.  The process - becomes more fair.

Here is a video about it.  Correcting for cognitive biases - taking affirmative action to correct for bias - yields better results. Not just for diversity - but for the quality of people hired. Because - let's face it - if the best person is a woman of color - and they are being discounted because of their gender and skin tone - then you aren't hiring the objectively best person for the job.

A big part of effective decision making and critical thinking skills - is learning to overcome your biases - so that you can make good decisions - based on what is objectively good - and not what you biasedly think is good.

This impacts - every decision you make!  So please - learn critical thinking skills and please learn about how to uncover and control your hidden biases.

Here is a free online course on cognitive bias - https://humanistlearning.com/controlling-our-unconscious-bias/
And one on reality based decision making - https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Gender Biases and Pay Raises

We all know there is a problem. Women aren't seeking advancement and aren't given pay raises in the same way as their male counterparts. And even companies who consider this a priority - still have problems.  I was recently asked what an HR manager can do to help close the gender and pay gap?

I teach how to use behavioral techniques to stop bullying and harassment. I also have a free course on implicit bias in the workplace. https://humanistlearning.com/controlling-our-unconscious-bias/

The first thing is to recognize – we all have biases and that our initial reaction to things – like a woman asking for a raise, might be more informed by our bias than by reason.  By stepping back – we are more likely to evaluate the request on it’s merits -than on instinct.

Yes – part of the job of HR is to keep employment costs down. But most businesses do have salary inequities – including ones that don’t think they do. One way to combat that is to proactively balance the salaries so that people in the same job – get paid the same. If a woman asks for a raise – do the research and find out if she is being paid equitably or not. The last thing you want is a good employee to leave because she doesn’t think she is being compensated fairly – so find out. Don’t assume – find out.  If she isn’t – give her the raise.

What a manager can do is validate the request. Thank the woman for having the courage to ask for the raise and – see what you can do to get a raise for her. Don’t just – I’ll see what I can do and then not do anything. Look into it. Verbally reward the effort and then – actively see if you can give her a raise.  If she is a good employee – advocate for her and fight for the raise for your people.

Protection for Gender, Gender Identity and Gender Expression

CA SB 396 went into effect in January. This law requires sexual harassment training to now include specific information on discrimination as a result of gender, gender identity, and gender expression.

My courses, are of course, compliant.

I want to share my supplemental video here for a few reasons.

1) This area is contentious and it shouldn't be.
2) Lots of people don't seem to understand the science of gender
3) Even well meaning people are confused by the terms and issues surrounding this topic and how to talk about it.
4) I'm really proud of this video.

I broke my SB 396 information into two videos.  One is about the law, the other is about the science of gender, identity, and expression and why they are protected by law.




This video is included as an optional supplemental lesson for people who take any of my sexual harassment training courses. https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

If you are looking for a training that is comprehensive and that will actually help your staff learn how to stop harassment using science - please consider using me.  https://humanistlearning.com/sexual-harassment-compliance-training/

Hire More Women

The solution to sexual harassment problems is simple. Hire More Women.  NO seriously - that's the solution.

Don't believe me? Here is what Harvard Business Review has to say about all our efforts to date - and why sexual harassment training doesn't work, but hiring and promoting more women does: https://hbr.org/2017/11/training-programs-and-reporting-systems-wont-end-sexual-harassment-promoting-more-women-will

To help drive home the point - here is a song.

There are many reasons why women aren't represented in the numbers they should be in companies - but one of them is that they are harassed out of the company and leave. Yes - that is what the Harvard research shows.

If you want more women - and you totally do since many different reports show that companies with women in position of power perform better than male only management teams - then you need to protect the women in your workplace so that they a) stay and b) rise the ranks to management.

PS - here are some links to the research on companies with women in management:

• http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/impact-gender-diversity-performance-business-teams-evidence-field-experiment
• http://www.catalyst.org/media/companies-more-women-board-directors-experience-higher-financial-performance-according-latest
• https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/29/companies-with-women-on-the-board-perform-better-report-finds

But really - the best thing you can do - is when you find a guy who has been harassing people - fire him and replace him with a woman. Corporate culture is determined by the last person promoted. So stop promoting harassers and start promoting women who have the courage to speak up.