We need to look at gender equality through a wider lens

Research from executive search firm Granger Reis and Real Estate Balance reported in Green Street News last week made for depressing reading.

75% of senior women in real estate still feel it’s harder for women than men to reach executive positions, with eight out of 10 saying lack of flexibility is the main issue, and two-thirds specifically citing childcare and family commitments.

It’s not the only recent piece of depressing reading on this topic. Research from PwC released over the summer suggested that it will take 45 years to close the gender pay gap in the UK. The analysis highlighted that over 20% of organisations reported no change or a small increase to their pay gap between 2023 and 2024, which is higher than the 17.6% that reported this between 2022 and 2023.

And last month, EG’s editor, Sam McClary, posted on LinkedIn in reaction to some CBRE research showing that 30% of Gen Z and Millennial women said they didn’t want the pressure of a senior role, versus only 7% of men. It led to some significant debate, mainly centring around whether women really didn’t ‘want’ the pressure of a senior role or didn’t feel they could take on a senior role in addition to the numerous other commitments that too often fall to them.

The problem with all of these articles and research reports though is that they tend to take a very narrow view, putting the blame for the situation principally on organisations. In some respects, this is justified: we need businesses to be putting policies and training in place to combat unconscious bias, encourage women back into the workplace after maternity leave and help them to unlock the top jobs that too many don’t feel are open to them.

But the glacial pace of change suggests that the efforts of the business world alone are not enough. Whereas reports such as these continue to push our focus onto employers, the fact is that inequalities are already entrenched well before we enter the workplace. 

When talking about gender equality, too often it’s about women needing to do more. As a society, we continue to encourage traditionally ‘male’ roles over traditionally ‘female’ ones. We seem to be constantly calling for women to be more ambitious, to return to work after maternity leave and take management roles or enter male-dominated careers, yet we fail to tackle the more difficult question of who’s going to look after the children, clean up after us (79% of domestic cleaners are female) or look after us when we’re sick (90% of nurses are female). While there’s plenty of encouragement of women into construction and engineering, I’ve yet to come across any efforts to encourage men into cleaning or caring. Gender ‘balance’ seems to be a one-way street.

And this starts young. As a parent of young children, it’s encouraging to see more books and other parents celebrating the idea of boys embracing traditionally female roles (‘The Viking Who Liked Icing’ being a favourite example amongst my kids). But it’s still more common to see parents encouraging their daughters to play with doctors’ sets and construction-related toys than it is to see them encouraging their sons to play with dolls or hairdressing sets, for example.

And when these children grow up, 10% of those in England will go to single-sex secondary schools, according to the National Pupil Database. Often these schools are selective and get better grades than mixed counterparts. But what message is this segregation sending to these children? If nothing else, it is getting them used to working only with people of the same gender, likely reinforcing their unconscious biases when selecting teams in the future and failing to educate them that diverse groups bring a wider range of perspectives. 

I do get it. We all want the best for our children so want to encourage them to aim high through role play that gives them an interest in highly skilled, highly paid professions and by sending them to schools where they will get the best grades. But as well as teaching girls to be ambitious and fulfil their potential, we also need to teach boys to play their part. That doesn’t mean teaching them to rein in their expectations, but it does mean teaching them that parenting, for example, is a joint responsibility.

Companies do have a role to play in making it easier for people – whatever their gender – to combine caring responsibilities with work, and recent moves from some businesses to reverse the flexibility that employees acquired during the pandemic and move towards more traditional working arrangements are a step in the wrong direction. And while wider factors should not be used as an excuse, we need to face up to the fact that more fundamental mindset and behaviour shifts are needed to level the playing field.