Our Top Five New and Recurring Diversity and Inclusion Trends of 2021

2020 was an extraordinary year for Diversity and Inclusion and, thankfully perhaps, it is now over. We now have the advantage of looking back through the year to better understand what lessons we have learned and what will continue to evolve in 2021. Here’s my list of five new and continuing trends for Diversity and Inclusion this year:

  1. Diversity & Inclusion at the top of the corporate agenda

Last year was a wake-up call for many companies as the BLM movement highlighted the deep-rooted, latent biases that prevent Black people from progressing. Once recognised, many companies realised the only way to combat bias is with a more rigorous and responsible approach to Diversity and Inclusion. Some have responded by introducing company-wide initiatives that lay the responsibility of progress at the feet of both the leadership team as well as each individual staff member. Voice At The Table is involved in several such programmes and is delighted to, finally, be part of more impactful change.

  1. The Evolution of Language

Use of language has two sides: one is to ensure that the words we use in our communication do not betray ingrained biases and outdated beliefs; the other is giving people the words they need to express what it’s like to be on the receiving end of bias.

Outdated language: the surge to eradicate words from our vocabulary that betray racism, sexism and other “isms” started last year with the purge of terms like white and black lists, master and slave servers, master bedrooms and so on. Our language has evolved to include antiquated standards without us noticing – until now, it seems.  Many a business has been named and shamed for the use of callous terminology that alienates employees, customers and other stakeholders.

You might recall the H&M incident a couple of years ago.

 

Words to express bias: Until recently, people weren’t sure how to explain why D&I is good for business, how it feels to be on the receiving end of microaggressions and what indirect discrimination looks like. With increasing emphasis on Diversity and Equality-related subjects, stories are emerging that showcase discrimination in a way that others understand. “Systemic racism” and “white privilege” are now recognised terms. Companies and people are woke to terminology that captures and expresses conditions that, not so long ago, while rampant, were not visible to most. This change will afford people opportunities to better explain the latent unfairness they may be experiencing.

  1. Diversity in the Public Eye

Diversity isn’t just important to companies, it has become a topic du jour for society. More and more films, TV programmes, theatre productions, art exhibitions, sports events and written materials occupy themselves with the topic and reflect society in a more authentic and accurate manner. Think of Netflix’s Bridgerton and BBC’s Small Axe. Consider all-female football and rugby teams now being afforded more screen time. Think about art exhibitions celebrating Black female artists and articles dedicated to female artists. While still in its infancy, this is a growing trend.

  1. Working From Home

Both a blessing and a curse, working from home is most certainly here to stay. It has, unfortunately, been as much a villain – particularly for women – as it has been a saviour – giving many of us an opportunity to wrap our careers around the rest of our lives. While the pandemic keeps wreaking havoc, we will continue to make our homes also our offices.  What happens after is still a mystery, but I’d venture a solid guess that we won’t be returning to the office on a full-time basis.

  1. Women are back in focus

The 2020 pandemic hit women hard. They bore the greater burden of the job loss predicament, having to exchange their careers for home-schooling and caring duties. Companies in the UK were also given a reprieve from Gender Gap Reporting in 2020 – a retrograde step for our legislative progress[i].

As a result, the focus on hiring, retaining and supporting women in the work force has returned, particularly in the Tech sector. The good news is that, while we continue to applaud efforts made by companies to level the playing field, many women have taken matters into their own hands by highlighting the issues and fighting to regain lost ground. Like NASDAQ’s CEO Adena Friedman who is pushing for more Diversity in the Boardroom, as reported by the New York Times in December.

Here at Voice At The Table, we will continue to work with you on developing your D&I strategy, helping you assess the levels of Diversity and/or Inclusion in your organisation, and helping you implement impactful culture change initiatives that will ensure that your organisation garners the benefits of diversity both for the business and for each individual.

To find out how we can help you on your Diversity journey, please get in touch with me.

[i] It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that women have also been let down by governments and society when it comes to protecting them from domestic abuse which always rears its ugly head during pandemics.

Guest Blog: Ensuring Gender Equality During the Holidays

By Anna Calvin*

With Christmas fast approaching, people are preparing to take a break from their work to spend time with family. However, gender inequality issues in the workplace are not taking time off. Women are experiencing reductions in salary, while others are losing their jobs. These setbacks, along with micro-aggressions, are preventing gender parity. I offer four tips to help your company bridge the gender inequality gap this holiday season.

  1. Delegate tasks fairly

Apart from a pay gap, women also suffer from a stress gap. According to research, female workers are more likely to struggle with work-related stress than male workers. This is because they are pressured to perform well in light of gender prejudices. This can become more severe during the holiday season as work intensifies. To avoid this, ensure that you’re giving all your employees a reasonable number of tasks, regardless of gender. All it takes is some extra planning. Verizon Connect’s Holly Dempster highlights the importance of planning ahead. Additionally, ensure that there is a plan for emergencies so that women don’t have to bear the brunt of holiday workplace stress. You can lean on technology to help you schedule and delegate tasks more efficiently, but don’t neglect the importance of communicating with your team, either.

2. Reject the notion that shopping for gifts is a woman’s job

To label something as “woman’s work” is to contribute to gender stereotypes. Huffpost’s Sarah Tinsley talks about the gender stereotyping that occurs during the holiday season and how it affects our children. Girls aren’t biologically wired to be more nurturing, and boys aren’t wired to be more practical. So why do we treat them as if they are, in the gifts that we give them?

The same can be said about those in the workplace. Before you tell your female employee to do some company gift shopping, ask yourself: Am I sending her out because she’s good at picking gifts, or because she’s a woman?

3. Advocate for greater male involvement in holiday preparations

There’s no such thing as “women’s work”, so what you can do is have ALL your employees lend a hand preparing for the holidays — from decorating the office to shopping for gifts to baking the office Christmas party snacks – although maybe not this year! By removing the stigma that it’s a woman’s job to shop or carry out domestic chores, you create a more inclusive and gender-equal workspace.

4. Encourage healthy conversations that tackle gender awareness and sensitivity

Finally, encourage your employees to talk about the issue. Don’t let it be swept under the rug because, often, this is why it continues to be in an issue in the first place. The Women in the Workplace report states that while company commitment to gender parity is generally high, this is often not put into practice. This is usually because many employees aren’t on board with it. But by engaging in conversations with all your employees and getting them to say their piece, you’re creating a safer, more open workspace. And, hopefully, one that is gender-equal.

Gender equality should be non-negotiable. To foster a community of diversity and inclusivity, all genders must be accepted and treated fairly. Voice At The Table can help your company build programs and strategies that promote diversity and inclusivity, all for a healthier workplace. Get in touch with us to learn more!

*Anna Calvin is a freelance blogger who advocates for women‘s empowerment and LGBTQ+ rights. She likes tea. A lot of it.

Modern Masculinity: Raising our sons to be more human

My 14-year-old son rejects everything feminine.

In his steep ascendance towards adulthood, he rejects emotions, cordiality and anything else that isn’t brute strength.  He sees himself as an alpha male whose only currency is power and muscle. He considers tears, overt kindness and expression of emotions to be anti-masculine – and therefore feminine – and sees  them all as weaknesses.

Granted, he’s only 14 and is looking for an identity that is his own and different from that of his parents, but I can’t help but wonder where he gets it from.

A colleague recently sent me a link to a short video entitled Why Men Hate Women.  It was an emotionally-produced, well-researched account of the theory for society’s views of what it means to be a man. The premise is that society teaches men that being masculine means men cannot show feelings, men cannot show tenderness or kindness, men don’t cry and can’t be seen as caring – or behave in any way that could be interpreted as that. These behaviours and emotions are seen as the antithesis to being a man and are lumped together as being feminine.   So, the thinking goes, if men are taught to reject what is characterised as feminine within them, it is likely that they will grow to dislike – even hate – femininity in others.

I listened in recognition of what I had observed for years and have spoken about: this outdated definition of masculinity is at odds with our times and many believe is the reason behind the fact that men are 3 times more likely to commit suicide than women.

Society, including parents, gets the blame.  Apparently, the way we talk to our daughters is different from the way we talk to our sons.  While we generally advise girls to share their feelings, we tend to tell boys to subdue them with statements like ‘boys don’t cry’ and ‘be strong’.  We encourage our daughters to search and identify their feelings while our sons may not get the same encouragement.

I of course know all this and am carefully watching how I raise my son and daughter.  But even when I’m consciously trying to ensure my son acknowledges and talks about his feelings, I find fewer opportunities to speak to him in the same way as I do with my daughter.  It’s easier, as a mother, to relate to a daughter than a son and to create emotional bonding moments, but that’s no excuse.  Whether it’s because he’s a teenager or because society got to him first, this is something that concerns me.  Not only do I want to raise a boy who is sensitive, emotionally-intelligent and respectful of women, I want to ensure my son grows into a mentally (and physically) healthy and happy man.

I’m reminded of Philippa Perry’s recent book cleverly entitled The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad that you did). It’s a fascinating and necessary read for all – whether you have children or not – but even the title is encouragement enough to break the cycle.  We don’t always know how to do right by our children because we tend to repeat the patterns that were programmed into us by our parents and our surroundings.  What we can do, however, is recognise that some of these pattern are no longer compatible with our lives and try to correct them.  We need to raise our boys differently.

So let’s do this together.  Whether you pick up Philippa Perry’s book or talk more to your son about this, let’s encourage our young men to get comfortable with expressing pain and other emotion.  Let’s not punish them with words or behaviours for showing characteristics that might traditionally be considered as female.  Let’s ask fathers to get more involved and share stories with their sons that acknowledge and demonstrate feelings.

We need to become more aware of language and demeanour that perpetuates the antiquated idea of masculinity.   In that way, we will be able to raise our sons to be more human.

The story of pink!

What do you associate with the colour pink?

Nowadays, most would consider pink to be a girl’s colour.  We’re told it’s a colour that stands for charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity and romance.

So why would Voice At The Table – a gender parity and balance advocate – choose pink as its dominant colour?  Doesn’t that reinforce the stereotypes attached to women and, as such, go against everything we stand for?

Not as I see it.

I chose pink to defy the stereotype and encourage others to move away from labels.  We help people see beyond convention.  The challenge we offer is for each of us to be confronted with something that seems straight forward and learn to understand the complexity beyond.  Let’s not judge books by their covers.  Let’s read the pages in between and gain a greater understanding of people and perspectives.

Let’s start with the colour pink.

Pink didn’t start out as a colour of girls.  In fact, in the 19th century, pink was a colour associated with boys.  As red was the colour closely-associated with men, pink – a lighter shade of red – was the colour most often chosen for little men, as boys were then regarded.

In June 1918, an American trade publication even wrote:

The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.

Pink also had different connotations in different cultures.  In India, for example, pink was seen as a symbol of a “welcome embrace”, while in Japan it was the colour of masculinity and now, the colour of Spring (when the famous cherry blossoms colour Japan pink throughout).  In Thailand, pink is the colour of Tuesday so anyone born on that day may wear pink on a Tuesday and adopt pink as their colour.  Italy’s sports newsletter La Gazetta della Sport uses pink paper to stand out and awards a pink jersey to the winner of Italy’s biggest bicycle race.

In Catholicism, pink symbolises joy and happiness.

Nowadays, the colour is closely associated with women’s issues and empowerment, as well as the LGBTQ+ movement.  And of course we all would recognise the pink ribbon as the emblem of breast cancer awareness.

I am surprised at how many different meanings the colour pink conjures up, and for all these meanings and reasons, I’m pleased to peg our name to it.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world… Let’s Steer a Course Towards Accelerating Gender Parity

You’ve seen these figures before: 100 years to close the overall gender gap, 257 to close the economic gender gap. It’s beyond our lifetime and too long to wait. What can be done to accelerate the closing of these gaps – or rather, chasms – by us, our companies and our governments?

Many countries, including the UK, are well placed to reap the benefits of their investment in female education and harness the gender balance opportunities made possible by the changing nature of work. So far, they – and we – have failed to do so.

But if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we can do things differently! We can work from home without disrupting the flow of business, we can reverse the signs of environmental damage to our planet, we can slow down, look up and ‘smell the roses’ once in a while. And, yes, we can accelerate the closing of these unspeakable gaps.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has already launched a programme with a number of countries to do just that. Suitably named the Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator, the programme is designed to pull together global and national public and private action that narrows these gaps. To date, the WEF has managed to secure commitment from nine governments around the world to join the Accelerator programme (its goal is 15 by the end of this year). Only one of the nine is a G20 country – and it is not the UK.

My point is that the tools and solutions to help accelerate the closing of these gaps are available to us, but for some reason, we are not taking the necessary steps to implement them – either on a national or more local front.

One of my worries is that the lessons we have and are continuing to learn from the pandemic will not be captured by our society. I worry that we will all return to work and life in the same way we did before Covid-19. This would be a lost opportunity; to reset our values, our priorities and our trajectories and to look at our lives from a different perspective and to realise that they could be different.

In April, I wrote about the fact that the new way in which we have started to interact with each other as a result of having to work and live from/at home has made us more empathetic, more accepting and more kind. We have reverted to what it means to be human and have injected that humanity into our work. We have become more tolerant of the daily disruptions in our work from children and pets; our “offices” show glimpses of who we are as people; we’re reconnecting with nature and with ourselves – our emotions and philosophies – as much as with distant friends and family. In other words, we’re bringing more of ourselves to work and are accepting of who that is, of us as well as our colleagues. Our managers are learning to lead with humour and be more comfortable with being less serious all the time. We care about the emotional and physical state of our colleagues and bend over backwards to help them cope.

I classify all this as inclusive behaviours. And, while we may feel that it’s not within our powers (query as to whether this is true) to persuade our CEOs and MPs to join the WEF’s commitment to accelerate the closing of gender parity gaps, what we most certainly can do is preserve how we interact with and treat each other when we go back to our desks in the office, and continue to nurture those inclusive behaviours that we have started to develop.

Inclusion leads to greater appreciation of diversity which makes programmes like the WEF’s Closing the Gender Parity Accelerators feasible and impactful.

 

Learn more about the WEF Accelerator programme and how your company can get involved.

Watch a short WEF video on the gender parity gap.

“Where are all the guys?” Why men avoid entering the gender parity debate.

Guest blog by David Levenson*

This article has been a long time in gestation – novels have been written quicker. But its development, alongside the evolution of my views, has given me the confidence (yes, men need confidence too) to write for Voice At The Table. It is also the story of why the men who should be publicly leading on gender equality mostly stay silent.

The inescapable conclusion is that men are too scared to engage on a subject that is so often regarded by them as a hot potato. Alternatively, we just don’t get it – we don’t see it as a problem, certainly not in a business or work context. It ends up that women’s issues are for women alone to comment on.

However, what is needed here is less gender politics and more honest conversation.

To the women who I hope are reading this, my message is simple – get the men in the room, onto the social media feeds and get them talking. It’s time to engage the guys in the gender parity debate and stop them from finding reasons to opt out.

So, here is the tale of my journey through diversity politics and how it relates to the wider issue of male engagement.

Fifteen months ago, I stumbled upon an article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox of  the consultancy 20-first in the Harvard Business Review. Her argument that gender equality is more than a “women’s issue” rang a bell for me and made me think about my position and indeed my role in helping to achieve parity for women on pay and in the boardroom.

Moreover, it convinced me that successful gender balancing requires convincing the majority of your employees that it’s a good idea. And that cultural change needs to be led from the top. Now, the majority of CEOs are male, so it follows that the equality agenda needs to be pushed… by men.

Having absorbed the article, I ran my eye down the list of comments on the LinkedIn posting that had accompanied the article.  Dozens of comments, all from women.  So, plaintively, I added a thought of my own – C’mon on guys, where are you?

As it turned out, my plea didn’t disappear into the ether.  Other men started to appear and contribute views in the discussion thread.  For me, this first tiny venture into the discussion was the start of a process which has culminated in this article.

Now, I may not be typical; I spent the best part of twenty-five years as a finance director in social housing during which time I worked for women CEO’s, and with many female executive colleagues and board members. It is fair to say that the experience of diverse groups generally, and women in particular, has been better than in most industries.  However, it is instructive to listen to the words of Terrie Alafet, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing and one of the sector’s most high profile women executives, in 2016:

“We know from our own research that as a sector, housing is actually more diverse than average…But at the top of our organisations, in our boards and senior teams, it’s a different story.”

It requires more from CEO’s than just a commitment to balance their executive teams, as Ms Wittenberg-Cox suggests.  It needs recognition that there is a duality of interest in gender equality.  Men have a stake in the decisions that women make about their roles as partners, parents and providers.  Economies and societies work best where there is openness and accountability for the contributions made by women and men in the workplace.

I like to think, notwithstanding all that the #MeToo movement necessarily represents and has had to undertake during the past year, that we have moved on from the battle of the sexes that characterised 20th century feminism and its machoistic counterpart.  Today’s workplace is less divisive and more co-operative.

But we are not there yet as all the statistics show and there is still a cultural battle, if not all-out war, to be fought and won.  And pivotal to this are the men who continue to occupy most top seats at board tables and in executive teams and who should constantly send out the message that striving for gender equality at the apex of companies, financial institutions, professions and public services is in the interests of all of us.

* David Levenson is an accredited executive coach and career strategy coach.  He founded Coaching Futures in 2016 with the aim of transforming people’s lives, careers and goals.

David is one of the co-creators of Raising Roofs.  He is passionate about the workplace of the future and fascinated by how technology is rapidly changing the way we work.

In Praise of Show-Offs

You may have come across the twitter hashtag #ImmodestWomen and wondered what it’s all about.  It caught my eye because it seems another excellent example of the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ behaviour asked of women:  on the one hand, we are expected to be humble, compliant and supportive of others; on the other hand we’re told to promote ourselves – particularly in the context of our careers – showcase our strengths and talk more about our own achievements.

To give you some context, #ImmodestWomen is a hashtag introduced by Dr. Fern Riddell who dared to insist that her hard-earned PhD title form part of her twitter handle. A backlash of comments from men berated her for being immodest, lacking humility, even being vulgar. By simply showcasing her expertise, Dr. Riddell was publicly shamed for not conforming to society’s expectations of women to be modest, well-behaved, not showing off.

How do we strike the balance between society’s – and frankly, our own – expectations of humility with the need to self-promote at work so as not to lose out to those (mostly men) who do it so well?

At Voice At The Table, we have a talk entitled ‘The Art of Female ‘Blagging’ with Integrity.’ Here’s how it works:

My good friend and associate Cara Moore and I recognised a while ago the double-edged sword society had dealt us. To generalise, men seem to be at ease ‘blagging’ their way into promotions and pay rises by exaggerating their achievements and abilities, while (again in general) employing those tactics made women feel uncomfortable.

After much discussion we came up with a way of ‘showing off’ which we think feels more natural to women. In other words, turning blagging into bragging – but doing so based on actual achievements and confidence in our potential. Hopefully it negotiates the fine line between what feels right, and what we as women need to do to be seen and heard.

We came up with our own acronym BLAG which captures the elements that make the term ‘blagging’ more palatable to women:

B stands for Bright: Being visible by speaking up, contributing without hesitation or self-doubt, confidently applying for stretching tasks, and asking for that title, promotion or pay rise. We should aim to be bright like a beacon and be known for our strengths and unique talents.

L stands for Learned: Many of us are experts in our fields, and this is important. Whatever we say or do, we need to be comfortable that we can back it up with substance. For many women, this is the reason the term ‘blagging’ feels unnatural – we think of it as a cover-up for actual knowledge. Not so for most of us, who know much more than we give ourselves credit for. Learned means not only knowing our ‘stuff’ but remembering that we do!

A stands for Audacious: This is where we must ask ourselves to ‘just give it a go.’ Often, before we try something new or more daring, we talk ourselves out of it before we even begin: ‘I’m not good enough. I don’t have the experience. They would never agree to it,’ pipes up our unhelpful inner voice. We have dozens of reasons for not doing something instead of just going for it. So being audacious is about silencing that inner critic and ‘JFDI’*.

G stands for Gutsy: Gutsy is about being brave enough to tie these three elements together and take action to BLAG by being visible, known for our expertise and knowledge, and unafraid to step up.

So, while shouting from the roof tops about how good we are is something we prefer to leave to others, there is no shame in adding those well-earned initials that follow your name. Thank you, Dr. Fern Riddell for standing up for yourself and for BLAGging with integrity.

* For those of you who are wondering, JFDI stands for Just Flippin’ Do It!

The Gender Pay Gap

Guest blog by Jacqueline Heron

In the beginning

With one of the widest gender pay gaps in Europe, in 2015 David Cameron set out to end this ‘scandal’ within a generation. In 2018, Theresa May said she wanted her government to end the ‘burning injustice’ of the gender pay gap.  As a first step, organisations with over 250 employees  published the gap in hourly pay between men and women on April 4th 2018. This will be an annual exercise.

It’s somewhat of a blunt instrument.  A company might have a gender pay gap if a majority of men are in top jobs, despite paying male and female employees the same amount for similar roles  – and there’s no adjustment for employees’ different roles, so CEOs are compared directly with PAs. Gaps can be skewed by a few high-earners.

However, everybody’s talking about it – from Boardroom to shareholders to customers and employees.  And what’s clear is that most of the UK’s medium and large organisations pay women significantly less than men, and that there aren’t enough women in top paying jobs.  No surprises there but it’s useful to have it in black and white. And what we’re seeing so far, is that many organisations are recognising that this isn’t good enough and are publishing the actions they plan to take start closing those gaps. Since this will be an annual exercise, we can monitor their progress.  It’s a case of ‘what gets measured, gets done.’

The results are in

Of the 10,019 firms that submitted gender pay gap data  only 2,255 (22.5%) have a median women’s hourly wage that is equal to or higher than that of men. The remaining 7,764 (77.5%) pay women less than men. Across the UK, men earned 18.4% more than women in April 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It impacts all industries: The construction sector reported the worst average median gender pay gap at 25%. This was followed by finance and insurance at 22% and somewhat surprisingly, education, with a pay gap of 20%.

And the gender pay gap becomes the gender pension gap

Older women are disproportionately affected, with those in their 50s experiencing an 18.6% pay gap, compared to 5.5% for women in their 20s.  This worsens as they reach pension age.  HMRC data has shown the gap between the amount of pension income received by men and women is widening. Women received just 37% of the total amount of income drawn from pensions last year, down from 39% in 2012-2013. Last year, women received £46.5bn in pension income, while men received £79.3bn.

The reasons are complex

Most industries fail to promote enough women. This is a global issue. McKinsey’s found that, whereas half of graduate entrants in American law firms were women, only one in five equity partners was. A study by SKEMA Business School in France found that, although women made up 52% of banking employees globally, only 38% of middle managers and 16% of executive committee members were women.

Men’s and women’s salaries start diverging from the childbearing years. Women pay a significant financial penalty for being parents. They may also play a non-parental care role – unpaid work looking after relatives, partners or friends with illnesses or disabilities. As a result, they are more likely to work in part time roles which are often lower paid with fewer opportunities for progression.

Structural discrimination plays a part. One in nine new mothers is dismissed, made redundant or treated so poorly that she leaves, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Subtler biases favour men in hiring, performance reviews, pay and promotions. A study in 2016 by Warwick University found that, among workers who asked for pay rises, men were 25% more likely than women to be successful.

As does unconscious bias. Take academia, where studies have shown that unconscious bias comes into play when science faculty members receive applications from students with feminine names, judging women to be less competent and less hireable than a man with an identical CV.

 Working towards a solution

Companies should beware of kneejerk reactions and take time to diagnose what lies behind the numbers. They need to look at how they hire, how they pay, how they promote and ask the question: are our practices fair?

The case for diversity demonstrates a positive impact on the bottom line.  McKinsey found that companies in the bottom quartile for gender and ethnic diversity in leadership were 29% less likely to achieve above-average profitability. An analysis of the data shows that in companies where women are fairly or slightly overrepresented in the top pay band, the median gender pay gap shrinks relative to the composition of the company as a whole.

Professor Sucheta Nadkarni, Director of the Cambridge Judge Business School Women’s Leadership Centre says: “Whether it is because women are getting paid less for the work that they are doing or because women are not getting equal opportunities to get into positions where the pay level is high – it doesn’t matter what the reason is, but there is a gender pay gap and in most cases it’s an issue of equality and justice. In both cases it’s an issue of an imbalance of some sort.”

We should be using the gender pay gap as a means to an end, focusing not solely on the outcome, but rather the lack of equality in opportunities for women.