Why Women’s Voices Are Needed in Public Affairs but Are Missing

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Does watching Mika Brzezinski get constantly interrupted by Joe Scarborough every morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe make you as angry as it makes me? And, yes, I do know that Scarborough interrupts all of his guests, but Brzezinski is his coanchor and often the only woman at the political round-table discussions hosted by the show. I often find watching how she is interrupted, talked over, and disregarded so upsetting that I have to turn the show off. She is smart and has a lot to say, but she is continually not allowed to make her points. Unfortunately, as I wrote in a previous article about research on women getting interrupted in business settings, this happens everywhere. Now new research, described by Marie Tessier of the New York Times, addresses the consequences of women’s voices being underrepresented in public affairs due to more frequent negative interruptions in meetings and harsh feedback online. When women don’t feel that their opinions are valued, they become less willing to share them. Tessier notes that researchers report that women’s voices are underrepresented in many public affairs settings like school board meetings, town meetings, rural community meetings, and online news sites. The researchers found that “women take up just a quarter to a third of discussion time where policy is discussed and decisions made, except when they are in the majority.” This includes online discussions of public affairs where “women’s voices are outnumbered three to one in news comments, according to data from the University of Sydney and Stanford University.” What are the possible consequences of women’s voices being underrepresented in public affairs? Tessier suggests these outcomes:

  • Democratic institutions may not accurately reflect the will of the people.
  • Issues of particular concern to women, such as care for children, older people, and people with disabilities, may not become funding priorities.
  • In Congress, the police, or the military, where women are underrepresented, there is a greater danger of policy decisions being skewed against survivors of sexual assault, against prosecution of sexual assault offenders, or against gender pay equity.
Strategies to increase the representation of women’s voices include the following:
  • Increase the number of women on school boards and in meetings. Women are interrupted and disregarded less often when they are in the majority.
  • Increase the number of women in leadership. Women speak more when a woman is leading.
  • Build networks, teams, and alliances to get ideas heard.
  • Institute a “no interruption” rule in meetings and rules to ensure equal floor time for women.
I have written more about ways to help women get their voices heard. What has worked for you?   Image: “Men and Women at a Town Hall Meeting” By: CDC/Dawn Arlotta  ]]>

Gender Shrapnel: A New Book on Gender-Based Discrimination

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gender-shrapnelGender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace, a new book by Washington and Lee University professor Ellen Mayock, is focused on academia but offers understanding of and solutions to gender-based discrimination in all types of organizations. Mayock’s core concept of “shrapnel” is especially intriguing. She explains that “shrapnel” describes the regular insults and slights that build up over time and inflict real damage. While the meaning of the term “shrapnel” is similar in this context to the term “microaggressions,” frequently used in dialogues about the impact of racism, I find shrapnel to be more accurate in describing the potential seriousness of the injuries inflicted by subtle discrimination. Whether it refers to gender or race or is used to describe other group-level discrimination, it is an equally useful concept. In the context of gender, Mayock explains that discrimination occurs when gender-based norms in society that “follow a patriarchal flow are replicated in the workplace.” According to Mayock, this can take the form of men feeling marginalized for showing emotion at work or taking family leave, of women struggling to be heard and get credit for their good ideas, and of trans women and men being ostracized and insulted. Mayock offers strategies like training sessions aimed at understanding gender and intersectional dynamics and the importance of sending consistent institutional messages about rectifying gender-based discrimination. It is not enough to write into an organizational value statement that discrimination is not tolerated. One example of an organization sending a strong institutional message about gender-based discrimination occurred recently when the first female president of Harvard University, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, canceled the entire season of the winning men’s soccer team. Foust acted in response to the male team’s longstanding practice of keeping numbered ratings of the body parts of members of the female soccer team on a spreadsheet. The president sent a strong message that sexual objectification of women, which conditions and reinforces “rape culture” in our society, will not be tolerated at Harvard. It seems to have taken a female university president to send this strong message at a major university. I highly recommend Mayock’s book to anyone who wants to understand and stop gender shrapnel in his or her organization. What instances of gender shrapnel have you witnessed or experienced at your workplace? How was it addressed?   Photo: “Shrapnel” by Todd Huffman License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]]>

Sexual Harassment and Assault: A Costly Tax for Women

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I am the survivor of both sexual assault and rape, and I understand all too well the high cost, or tax, that women pay for being treated as sexual objects.  I experienced sexual assault as a child, an adolescent, a young woman, and a middle-aged woman. I have never talked about most of these experiences, but I believe that women now need to speak out to make it clear that disrespecting women is a real problem, not just “locker room talk.”  Sexual assault and violence are serious problems all over the world and not small problems in our country.  Amanda Taub of the New York Times reports the following:

  • One in four women in the United States have been sexually assaulted.
  • One in five women in the United States are victims of rape or attempted rape.
The cost to women who experience sexual assault and harassment in its many forms—many of which were clearly described in the Access Hollywood tape that recorded Donald J. Trump boasting of grabbing, groping, kissing, leering, and committing other violations of the personal boundaries of women without their consent—occurs on many levels.  The cost can be emotional trauma that can be permanently damaging to one’s confidence and self-image, not to mention the pain and humiliation of rape.  I particularly resonate with Taub’s description of the impact of sexual assault on women as an “opportunity tax.” Women are taught early in life that they are responsible for avoiding sexual assault and that it is their fault if it happens to them. Taub cites social scientist Professor Leong, who explains the opportunity tax: “Whereas men can freely seize opportunities, women must pause and weigh the costs of” meeting alone with a professor, going out to dinner with a male client, networking after hours with colleagues at a conference, meeting alone with a potential investor, or going on a business trip with a male boss. Because of sexual harassment and assault, many women quit jobs, leave professions, or step back to avoid risk, thereby damaging their careers and limiting their life choices. A lot of women have come forward to tell their stories since Trump’s words and tone in the Access Hollywood recording struck a chord with many of us. We are outraged by the dismissal of his remarks as “locker room talk.”  Jonathan Miller sums up Trump’s statements well, writing that they reflect a “rape culture” in our larger society.  He explains that talking about objectification of women’s bodies results in the cultural conditioning of men and boys to feel entitled to treat women as sex objects. This is also described by Sam Polk as “bro talk.” Yes, Trump’s comments struck a nerve.  Kelly Oxford posted a tweet sharing her experience of sexual assault on Friday night when the Access Hollywood tape was released, and by Monday morning twenty-seven million people around the world shared first-person accounts or visited her Twitter page.  Shortly before the Access Hollywood tape came to light, I published an article on why sexual harassment happens, and received more than two hundred stories and comments and over 10,000 viewings from readers all over the world on LinkedIn.  The following are a few of those comments from my readers:
  • I work in silence. It’s not nice bosses that have the upper hand over employees. Female Housekeeper
  • I was in a position in which a high ranking male would look at various parts of my body in a very lewd manner. When I filed a complaint, it became his word against mine and nothing was done.  I was asked to transfer to another location. Female Technician
  • I think a lot of sexual harassment begins at home. Dad belittles Mom, Mom tries to keep a straight face because the kids are watching.  Daughter grows up and gets married to a man much like Dad.  This carries over into the daughter’s work life—trapped, not knowing which way to turn, ignoring degrading remarks in order to put food on the table. Female Author and Business Owner
  • One college professor grabbed my backside while at a business club event. Another offered to give me a better grade if I “went out” with him. I took the lower grade.  Things like this happen more frequently than reported. Female Technical Professional
  • This is still a huge problem. I recently wrote about my own experiences with sexual harassment by an executive and admitted my own fear of speaking out because I worried it might damage my reputation. Female Entrepreneur
  • In India, a deeply rooted culture of patriarchy plus inherent misogyny form a dangerous basis of judging the seriousness of any sexual harassment complaint made at the workplace. Female Financial Advisor in India
It is not easy to speak out when demeaning and traumatizing things happen to you.  It helps when we can share our stories and know we are not alone.  We must come out of the shadows with our stories and support each other.  Together we can pressure our society to stop perpetuating a rape culture and to end this opportunity tax for women. Please share your story here, if you have one to tell.   Photo: Daniel Kruczynski License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode  ]]>

Women in China: Still Waiting for Equality

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I have the good fortune to travel to mainland China two or three times a year. As a practicing organization development consultant and trainer for more than thirty years, it is a thrill for me to share my knowledge and experience in China by teaching leadership and consulting skills workshops to Chinese professionals. I have been fascinated with China ever since I taught English there in the 1980s when the country was newly opened to Western tourism and commerce after being closed to the West for decades. I continue to marvel at the changes that the Chinese have accomplished since my first visit over thirty years ago. I have seen the country evolve from a backward Third World country to a First World global power. But, to my surprise, one thing that has not changed is discrimination against women in society and the workplace. In the 1980s my female Chinese students peppered me with questions about the Western Women’s Liberation Movement. They explained and complained that even though Mao taught that “women hold up half the sky,” women were not really equal in China. In fact, they explained, while women were expected to pursue careers and compete with men in the marketplace, women were also expected to assume sole responsibility for performing housework, raising children, and caring for elderly parents. The women were frustrated in the 1980s and wanted me to tell them how to start a women’s liberation movement in China. Now, fast-forward to today, and I regret to report that the women in my workshops in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou still complain that women are expected to do it all while working—with little or no involvement from their male spouses. In addition, they face stereotypes and social norms that create other barriers for them. Helen Gao, writing for the New York Times, sheds light on present-day discrimination faced by Chinese women as follows:

  1. Social norms prescribe that the husband should provide the majority of the money for buying a home upon marriage and should also be the sole holder of the title. Gao reports that “a 2012 study found that 70 percent of brides or their families contributed to the purchase of a home, yet a woman’s name appeared on only 30 percent of the deeds.” The divorce rate in China has doubled in recent years, and Chinese women have no right to property if their name is not on the title.
  2. Widespread pregnancy discrimination exists in the workplace in China for women with no children or one child. The lifting of the one-child policy by the government, now allowing couples to have two children, means that women with none or one child have a hard time finding a job. Employers do not want to hire someone who might get pregnant.
  3. The aging of the Chinese population also creates added responsibility for women. With few services provided by the government and no siblings to help with aging parents because of the one-child policy, Goa explains that “wives are often expected to care for their own parents as well as their husbands’,” while working full time.
  4. Unmarried women are stigmatized and often have difficulty finding a job. Because they are unmarried, even if they are divorced, especially if they are thirty or older, they are considered to have “severe personality flaws” or “psychological issues” that make them undesirable hires. The social pressure to be normal by being married and having at least one child is enormous for women.
While some limited public discussion of these issues has begun on social media, and some women are meeting privately in “lean-in” circles, Gao reports that a recent public protest over sexual harassment on public transportation by women’s rights activists was met with “a ruthless state crackdown.” It is still quite dangerous for women to hold public protests to speak out about women’s issues. The women I meet in my workshops are strong and frustrated about the load they must carry and the barriers they face. Perhaps one day they will be able to get their voices heard. Let’s hope it will be soon.   Photo Credit: By Steve Evans from Citizen of the World – China, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25845033    ]]>

Women Competing with Women: How to Make Competition Fun and Energizing

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As a consultant and coach for more than thirty years, I have heard too many painful stories from female clients about feeling unsupported and even undermined by other women at work. When I decided to research this dynamic for my book, New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together, I found that these feelings and experiences happen for a reason: organizations actually set up women to feel competitive with one another. This happens when women see very few other women in senior leadership positions. As one of my research participants explained: You’re playing a game with men because there are so few women at the top. Because there are few slots for women, you see the successful women as your competition. You don’t really see the whole pie or all the people out there as your competition. Belinda MJ Brown, writing for Forbes, suggests that the recent Olympic Games offer women in corporations another way to think about competition as a win-win scenario rather than a win-lose, or zero-sum-game, scenario. She reminds us of the recent Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman and Simone Biles who, while competing with each other for Olympic Gold, were also able to cheer each other on to outperform their own previous performances. This reminds me of my own experience as a lap swimmer. I always swim faster and more effortlessly when someone who is my equal, or even a little stronger, is swimming in the lane next to me—even if it is a stranger. I draw energy from him or her and push myself a little harder in the presence of another athlete—even when no one is trying to win. Brown suggests the same can be true for women at work. If we can find fun and regeneration in competing with one another instead of against one another, we can find energy and enjoyment in encouraging one another to do our best and celebrate one another’s accomplishments. Brown suggests that we can shift our mind-sets about competing with other women to win-win by taking these steps:

  1. Become aware of the structural way organizations set up women in a win-lose mind-set against each other when there are few women in senior leadership positions.
  2. Notice your own thoughts and beliefs about competition with or against yourself or other women.
  3. Connect with and focus on your own strengths, instead of comparing yourself to others. Channel your energy into growing and leveraging your strengths.
  4. Support other women in a caring and genuine way, and openly celebrate their successes.
  5. Talk with other women about the benefits of encouraging one another to do their best. Agree to support and celebrate one another.
Try these win-win mind-sets and let me know in the comments section if you notice any changes in your energy and relationships at work. I believe that even with “so few women at the top,” supporting one another and competing with instead of against one another can result not only in our own individual successes but in changes in the cultures of our organizations, thus resulting in more women at the top. Photo Credit: Business Forward at Flickr.com]]>

A Road Map to Gender Equity: Women in the Workplace 2016 Report

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A new study by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey finds little progress in advancement for women in the largest companies. This study of 132 companies employing 4.6 million people includes a review of the pipeline data of the companies, a survey of HR practices, and surveys of 34,000 employees about attitudes on gender, job satisfaction, ambition, and work-life issues.

Key Findings: The Current State

First, let’s take a look at key findings from the study:
  • Women remain underrepresented at every level. For every 100 women promoted to manager, 130 men are promoted. This disparity begins early and grows larger with only 20 percent of SVP roles held by women, which results in very few women in line to become CEO.
  • Women of color face many more challenges with access to opportunity, including sponsorship, than do white women.
  • Women negotiate for promotions and raises as often as men but receive more negative feedback than men when they do.
  • Women ask for feedback as often as men but are less likely to receive it and get less access to senior leaders and sponsorship.

A Road Map to Gender Equity

The LeanIn.Org/McKinsey report offers a practical road map for how leaders can speed the rate of progress in achieving gender equity and inclusion:
  1. Communicate a compelling business case using data and stories about why gender diversity is good for the company. Senior leaders need to talk openly about the value of gender diversity and model their commitment to gender equity. Transparency through disclosure of gender metrics to employees will also demonstrate leadership’s seriousness about the issue.
  2. Ensure that hiring, promotions, and reviews are fair. This is challenging because of unconscious bias. Numerous studies show that women receive harsher and more personal judgments in reviews than men. Practices such as requiring diverse slates of candidates for internal and external hires, conducting blind resume reviews, applying clear and consistent criteria for performance reviews, and carrying out third party reviews of performance feedback to ensure fairness are all actions that can increase gender (and other) diversity.
  3. Invest in management and employee training in awareness of implicit bias for hiring and performance reviews. Managers also need training in recognizing and challenging inappropriate gender-based language and behavior and recognizing and offsetting the double-binds that women often face in the workplace—such as receiving negative feedback when asking for raises or promotions.
  4. Focus on accountability and results. I have often seen companies espouse a commitment to valuing gender diversity but refuse to hold senior leaders accountable for performance against gender metrics. Almost without fail, no change occurs when there is no accountability for senior leaders. It is also important to track salary differences by gender and to set targets so that progress can be measured.
Numerous studies show the benefits of gender diversity, but statistics from studies or one-time training sessions won’t bring about change unless the leaders of organizations invest in changing the cultures—including changes in attitudes, awareness of implicit bias, and changes in policies and procedures—of their organizations. The road map above shows the way forward for leaders. What successes have you seen and what worked? Please share your stories.   Photo Credit: Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net  ]]>

How Female Scientists Are Fighting to Be Heard

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Not long ago, a prominent neuroscientist noticed an announcement for an upcoming neuroscience conference. Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times reports that this scientist, Dr. Yael Niv of Princeton University, also noticed that “none of the twenty-one speakers were women.” She was upset because she had been pushing for greater inclusion of women scientists as speakers at conferences for years. To top it off, the organizers of this conference were women. This event pushed Dr. Niv and about twenty of her women colleagues to take stronger action to create change. Why is it important for women to be included as speakers? Mandavilli cites Dr. Niv as explaining, “Being invited to speak on panels is more than a matter of prestige; it’s how your peers come to know who you are. When you are not known in science, your papers are less likely to be accepted. . . . [and] your grants are less likely to be funded.” In other words, it’s a matter of professional survival. I wrote in a previous article about this same challenge for female microbiologists and the importance of being invited to speak at major professional meetings for career advancement. Invitations to speak at major professional meetings are used by faculty promotion and tenure committees as evidence of external recognition and are critical to advancement decisions. The female microbiologists successfully utilized a strategy that may now work for their neuroscience sisters: they used data to bring pressure on conference organizers. In this same vein, Dr. Niv and about twenty other female neuroscientists conducted a study of more than sixty conferences in various areas of neuroscience and have posted the gender ratios of speakers to raise awareness of the problem. In the most-egregious-offender category, just eleven women compared with 213 men were speakers at thirteen of the conferences. Dr. Niv and her colleagues believe that the lack of opportunity for women to be conference speakers is the result of implicit bias. These women are brain scientists, after all, and they understand a lot about the ways people make decisions. We are often unaware of the ways that stereotypes and biases influence our decisions. For this reason, Dr. Niv and her colleagues started a website, BiasWatchNeuro, where they publish the numbers of female speakers at conferences. The website may go a long way toward helping conference organizers make more conscious decisions about who they are inviting as speakers. We all have bias. If you think you’re immune, click on this link and take some of the implicit bias tests from Harvard University. They may open your eyes. They opened mine! If you take any of the tests and are surprised by the results, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Fotoshop Tofs.]]>

How Sexism and Racism Can Be Harmful to Your Health

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Sexism and racism are two forms of systemic injustice where people are treated unfairly by a network of social institutions because they belong to a certain social-identity group. For example, much has been written about the gender-pay gap and obstacles to promotion for women in many fields. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement has raised our awareness of the higher rates of incarceration and killing of African Americans by police and the judicial system than is true for Whites. Gender and race are not the only social-identity categories where discrimination occurs, of course. Let’s take a look at some recent studies on how sexism and racism can be harmful to our health. (Be aware that these findings probably apply to other marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQIA community, as well.) One example of sexism is the barrier for women in certain fields, such as engineering and construction, that reduce the number of women in these professions. Jenny Kutner reports that a new study by researchers at Indiana University found that token women—defined as having 15 percent or fewer female colleagues in male-dominated industries—experienced “abnormally high stress levels.” Specifically, the researchers found that being exposed to stressors such as lower pay, isolation and invisibility, obstacles to promotion, and sexual harassment causes “irregular patterns of cortisol, the hormone that regulates stress.” Token women, the researchers explain, “exhibit more unhealthy cortisol fluctuations throughout the day than do their male counterparts or women who worked in offices with a more balanced gender ration.” Kutner notes that the fluctuating cortisol levels of the token women in the study are the same sort of hormone irregularity associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and can have lasting repercussions on health and well-being. Another example of sexism is the objectification of women and girls that can begin in adolescence or earlier and continue through adulthood. Objectification includes (but is not limited to) the following:

  • Leering by men who may be colleagues, acquaintances, or strangers
  • Catcalls of a sexual nature on the street from strangers
  • Groping and flashing by men that can start when girls are quite young
  • Online sexual harassment
Jessica Valenti of the New York Times reports on research showing that these examples of “the ways women and girls are looked at and dehumanized” affect their mental health, sense of self, and sense of safety. Acts of objectification are microaggressions—small moments of being diminished or demeaned—that add up. These are not to be confused with macroaggressions like rape and other forms of sexual violence, but nonetheless they are harmful in the long run for girls and women. The psychological toll of racism and the resulting daily cost of micro- and macroaggression is an old story for black people in our country. Jenna Wortham writes that the killings of black women and men by police officers recorded on cameras and made public—including the recent killings of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland, and Korryn Gaines—have produced “rage and mourning and angst that . . . eats you alive with its relentlessness . . . and leaves you feeling helpless.” She explains that the resulting traumatic stress response for many African Americans makes them physically sick with rashes, depression, insomnia, and emotional exhaustion. As a white person, I’ve been upset by these killings and incarceration rates, but I realize that I do not feel the same fear and trauma as my African American friends and colleagues—I do not think the police are going to arrest me or shoot me because of the color of my skin, which is a reality for them. What can we do? One thing that matters a lot is to listen to each other to understand the impact of racism and sexism—men can listen to women, whites can listen to people of color—and take whatever action we can together to change the systems that damage our health and our lives. It will take all of us to change these deeply rooted systems. Do you have stories of people from different social backgrounds coming together to address systemic injustice? If so, please let me know in the comments.   The image in this post is courtesy of businessforward (CC BY-SA 2.0).    ]]>

What Sexism Looks Like in Politics and Life

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Examples of sexism are rampant in the United States as demonstrated in our presidential contest, sexual harassment scandals, and other public-sector examples like the gender-wage gap. Let’s be clear—both women and men can hold sexist attitudes about women. Sexist attitudes usually include negative stereotypes that create barriers or unfair double standards for women. I have written about many ways that internalized sexism makes it difficult for women to support strong women leaders in my book, New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together. Below are some examples of sexist attitudes currently on display. Gail Collins of the New York Times notes several instances of sexism in the current presidential race demonstrated by Trump and his supporters:

  • Yelling. Collins notes that Trump and his supporters complain that Clinton yells too much. Collins also notes that Trump yells all the time. She goes on to explain that voice is a sensitive issue for women, who have learned that for their ideas to get heard, they must speak as assertively as men. Yet messages about the sound of women’s voices being unacceptable in public roles are deeply ingrained in our culture. Collins reflects that not too long ago, no women news anchors were on television because it was thought that no one wanted to hear the news from women’s voices. I remember being told when I was growing up that “women should be seen and not heard.” It seems this message is still operating in the underbelly of our culture.
  • Being Weak. Collins notes that Trump and his surrogates like to describe Clinton as lacking in stamina. Nobody who watched Hillary Clinton as secretary of state can accuse her of lacking stamina. This is sexist code language reflecting a negative stereotype of women being too weak and indecisive to be leaders.
  • Not Looking Presidential. Trump likes to talk about how he looks presidential because he is tough, and that Clinton is not tough and therefore does not look presidential. One of the other criticisms of Clinton has been that she is not feminine or emotional enough. This seems to be a classic double bind and makes me wonder if only men are allowed to be tough.
  • Failure to Smile. Collins notes that Clinton has been roundly criticized for not smiling enough during debates. Really? This is actually a common critique of women in leadership roles in organizations as well. The same criticism is not leveled at male leaders. And besides, how can you communicate toughness (if this is what’s required to be presidential) if you are smiling all the time while talking about very serious matters of global importance?
  • Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, writes that she endured many of the same sexist criticisms about her appearance that Clinton now endures, including unending criticism about her hair style, for not wearing heels or enough make up, and for wearing too many bracelets. Kennedy Townsend notes that we have no archetype for a powerful woman in our culture and few role models.
Andi Zeisler writes in the New York Times about another expression of sexism in our presidential contest—the use of the B word by Trump and his supporters to describe Hillary Clinton. Zeisler points out that calling a woman a bitch “has long been an effective way to silence women because so many of us have been brought up to believe that remaining likeable to others—even those we ourselves don’t like—is paramount.” She suggests we reframe the word to be positive, using it to mean these traits:
  • Flexing influence
  • Standing up for your beliefs
  • Not acting according to feminine norms and expectations
  • Wanting to win and going for it
  • Rejecting the expectations, assumptions, and double standards that have always dogged women in American politics
In other words, Zeisler suggests that we reframe the term to mean being a strong woman who gets things done. Isn’t this what we need from women leaders and from our president? Count me in. I’m with her. If I am ever called a bitch, I will be proud that my strength is showing. Why are you proud of being a strong woman, or what do you admire about the strong women you know? Let me know in the comments section.   The image in this post is courtesy of businessforward (CC BY-SA 2.0).  ]]>

New Mothers in the Cockpit: Challenges for Female Pilots

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The commercial aviation industry remains one of the toughest and least accommodating for new mothers. Annalyn Kurtz of the New York Times notes that “pilots are exempt from a provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to accommodate new mothers.” Perhaps because only 4 percent of the 159,000 certified commercial airline pilots are women, and only a portion of these are childbearing age, the issues of paid maternity leave and accommodation for breast-feeding are not priorities for union collective bargaining efforts. Many male pilots are also not supportive of fighting for these policy changes on behalf of their female colleagues because they do not see the policies as important. For these reasons, female pilots have begun to join forces to pressure their male colleagues and unions to support demands for paid maternity leave and alternative work assignments so that women can keep their jobs and support their families during pregnancy and while nursing newborns. Female pilots are in a unique situation in that providing accommodation, time, or privacy for breast pumping while on the job is no simple matter. Because female pilots are on the job in the cockpit of an airplane, they cannot easily gain privacy for pumping without leaving the cockpit, usually for about twenty minutes at a time, which can raise safety concerns. While a flight attendant can enter the cockpit while the female pilot is pumping in the bathroom to meet the requirement of having at least two people present at all times in the flight deck, not everyone feels this arrangement is acceptable for safety purposes. For this reason, female pilots are demanding paid maternity leave or temporary ground assignments while pregnant or nursing so that they can continue to support their families. Without paid leave, they must choose between earning a living or breast-feeding their babies. Some airlines also force pregnant pilots to stop flying between eight to fourteen weeks before birth, which means lost wages. While some airlines offer unpaid leave, this does not allow the female pilot to pay her bills. Paid leave and temporary ground assignments would be reasonable accommodations for female pilots. Female flight attendants face many of the same issues. It’s time for the aviation industry to change their antiquated policies and create a more inclusive workplace.   The image in this post is in the public domain courtesy of Poli.]]>