19 Practical Steps You Can Take to Making Your Workplace Better for Women

Inspired by 35 Practical Steps Men Can Take to Support Feminism, here are some practical steps men and women can take (and are taking) to make the workplace better for women that go beyond the obvious of don't touch, harass, or sexually harass them.

Even if some of these seem bizarre or outlandish, I am including them because I've witnessed them occur several times and/or heard stories from other women about these things happening perpetually.

1.  Listen to women when they speak.

People have a habit of ignoring what women say, or assuming that they don't know what they are talking about.  Sometimes it seem like men in a meeting are just waiting for women to shut up so they can talk.  Women will also undersell how good their ideas are.  But women can offer just as much to a conversation as a man.   Listen to what they are saying.  Especially if they are talking about sexism.

2.  When you praise women, praise them for things other than "feminine" behavior.

There is nothing more defeating than working really hard at your job, only to ever get praise for being "nurturing" and "making people smile" and attending to the needs of others.  Praise women for being actually good at their jobs and praise them for the things that make them assets to your team/company.  Don't praise them for performing gender roles and for generic qualities that have nothing to do with their job.

3.  Don't make jokes about your female coworkers being pregnant.  Especially around clients or guests!

While there is nothing wrong with a woman being pregnant--- whether she's single, in a relationship, or married--- women still face a lot of stigma about their sexuality.  Making jokes about a woman being pregnant (especially if she is unmarried) can imply that she is careless, unfit for work, promiscuous, and possibly sexually available in ways that she isn't.  People who are not familiar with the woman (clients and guests) will not understand the nuances of the joke and may draw unfair, harmful conclusions about your female coworker.  It may also imply to the woman that her coworkers spend their time thinking about her sexually rather than professionally, and that they are ok advertising this.  This can make the workplace uncomfortable for her.

White Feminism & Race

Intersectionality is the new buzzword and it rocks.  

Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another. 

While feminism can intersect with any of the above, an impassioned essay entitled "The Charleston Imperative: Why Feminism & Antiracism Must Be Linked" focuses the above definition to the modern intersection of race and feminism.  It reads:

We must recognize, at last, that racial violence, including the cycle of suffering and slow death that hovers over Black communities, is structural as well as individual. Equally significant, racial violence has never been focused on males alone....

Feminists must denounce the use of white insecurity -- whether in relation to white womanhood, white neighborhoods, white politics, or white wealth -- to justify the brutal assaults against Black people of all genders. Antiracists must acknowledge that patriarchy has long been a weapon of racism and cannot sit comfortably in any politic of racial transformation. We must all stand against both the continual, systematic and structural racial inequities that normalize daily violence as well as against extreme acts of racial terror. Policy, and movement responses that fail to reflect an intersectional approach are doomed to fail.

If you'd like a less academic definition and a great description of what I mean by "white feminist" (which is not synonymous with a feminist who is white), watch Huffington Post/Now This News's video clip.

Meanwhile, Danielle Fuentes Morgan details an example of her interactions with the racist patriarchy in her piece entitled "WE ALREADY KNOW: WHITE LIBERAL RACISM DENIES BLACK PERSONHOOD."  She aptly describes the type of discrimination and bias that she encounters on a daily basis, even in a quiet location like a waiting room.

This man decided I was too stupid to know who Bernie Sanders was (or at least how important he should be to me, as the token Black person in the room), that his ill-advised ramblings were sufficient to inform me, and that I was obligated to stop what I was doing to listen to him. He didn’t address anyone else in the waiting room. Just me. And no one said a word in my defense... 

My daughter’s face flashed before my eyes, in a split second, and I left. I allowed myself to be disrespected to keep my family and myself safe. I sacrificed my dignity in an effort to protect my life. I am struck even now by the fact that I left without my personhood respected to save my physical person. These are the choices people of color have to grapple with every day. I was able to choose to leave. Sandra Bland was not afforded that option.

Honestly, this is an experience I most likely would not encounter. However, what gets me (as a white female) is that she experienced this all this shame by herself. Her adversary no doubt felt victorious; he sure educated her. Where was her support? Where are the modern day feminists to point out what an ass that guy was? Are the predominately white women that are currently front lining the feminist movement (Emma Watson, Sheryl Sandberg, Meryl Streep) helping to advocate for all the non-white women out there in ways that are appropriate to each women's situation?

Anne Thériault from over at Medium and The Belle Jar is not so sure. In her piece called "Shit White Feminists Need To Stop Doing" she ends with:

5. Arguing That All Other Forms Of Oppression Are Over So We Need to Focus On Women
I’M LOOKING AT YOU, ARQUETTE.
Look, I know that her Oscar speech has been critiqued and analyzed to death, so I won’t dwell on this too much, but — come the fuck on. First of all, saying that we need “all the gay people and people of colour that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now” kind of insinuates that none of those gay people or people of colour are women, no? Second of all, literally read a book or something because racism and homophobia and transphobia are far from over. Third of all, you are a white woman who has benefited from enormous privilege her entire life. You don’t get to tell other marginalized groups what to do.

Here is her complete list.  You should check out the descriptions that follow each item as well.  They might be biting, but her comments deserve some thought.

1. Believing Their Experiences of Marginalization Are Universal
2. Crying About How We’re All On The Same Team
3. Talking About Hijabs (Or Burqas, Or Sex-Selective Abortion, Or Anything, Really)
4. Thinking That All Sex Workers Are All Miserable Wretches Who Hate Their Lives
5. Arguing That All Other Forms Of Oppression Are Over So We Need to Focus On Women

 Thériault talks about how most white feminists mean well.  While that is wonderful, it can be damaging.  By not being "intersectional," white feminists run the risk of being exclusive.  Women of different races, sexual orientation, cultural backgrounds etc. will not see feminism as a safe place...feminism is not really on their side. What is the point of non-inclusive feminism that does not support the women who would benefit most from a connected, unified community?

Some of the articles about white feminists (like the HuffPost vid) use the phrase "white feminists need to shut the fuck up," and I noted that some commenters are whining about feeling silenced.  Obviously, complete silencing is not the point.  However, it is a little hard to hear what other people are saying when you are constantly using your mouthpiece.  White women (myself included) should make an effort to throw the spotlight onto some of these intertwined topics and women who are dealing with multiple forms of discrimination.  Piper Kerman of Orange is the New Black is a great example of a feminist who has used her white privilege to bring the criminal justice system and the women it entraps into everyday discussion.

However, I think Gloria Steinem provides the best example.

"When asked what she’d say to the women of color who don’t feel that the feminist movement includes them or is about them, she says “I wouldn’t say anything, I’d listen.”

Do What You Love?

I was planning to write a long piece about contraception as a vehicle for economic opportunity, but found the recent vitriol swirling around this topic too depressing.  Instead, I will leave you with a thought provoking article I came across this morning.

"In the Name of Love" challenges our current "do what you love" mantra regarding work, arguing that a) this privileged perspective dehumanizes the vast majority of people who do our necessary but generally unlovable work, and b) enables the capitalist system to exploit workers by leveraging the passion-means-more-than-compensation ethos.  The author also notes how this dynamic particularly harms women:

"Yet another damaging consequence of DWYL is how ruthlessly it works to extract female labor for little or no compensation. Women comprise the majority of the low-wage or unpaid workforce; as care workers, adjunct faculty, and unpaid interns, they outnumber men. What unites all of this work, whether performed by GEDs or PhDs, is the belief that wages shouldn’t be the primary motivation for doing it. Women are supposed to do work because they are natural nurturers and are eager to please; after all they’ve been doing uncompensated childcare, elder care, and housework since time immemorial. And talking money is unladylike anyway."

I will admit to being shocked by this revelation at first.  I guess I'd bought into the Do What You Love thing just like everyone else.  My next reaction was rage.  A system of oppression exploiting mankind's hope for self-fulfillment as a sort of Trojan Horse?!  Finally, I sink back into depression.  Has there ever been a self-help movement that wasn't exploitative or exploited to benefit the privileged?

Be vigilant my friends.