5 Conversation Starters to celebrate International Women’s Day
Author: Meghan Van Den Berg
Today is International Women’s Day. I feel there is importance in highlighting gender equality, both as a mother but as a professional in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Salesforce achieves and continues to strive for gender equality through multiple strategies and initiatives to educate and start conversations around women empowerment and equality across different and unique people, see their current statistics and goals. Take the Trailhead below see their approach!
As a Salesforce partner, we strive to bridge the inequality gap and stand behind the efforts of Salesforce as our own so, we decided to take a look at our own statistics on gender equality.
Upper Sigma values diversity, in particular women’s rights and equality, in the workplace but our connections to our everyday passions do link up to family life and essentially our relationships beyond just colleague to colleague interactions, which in the past and still present today, challenges.
So, here at Upper Sigma, we wanted to share some ideas on how you can start conversations with your children, friends, family, housemates and most importantly, within your workplace. Biases and taught inequality actually starts from a young age and how parents and society influence the way children grow and learn and eventually this does develop into the challenges we face as adults in the workplace. In addition, those challenges are seen in external activities and communities outside of the workplace such as lifestyle choices and responsibilities like fitness and health to who washes the dishes and hangs the laundry to dry (then to iron and fold it..).
1: QueenRules
The Queen Rules project started when a five-year- old girl questioned why King ranks higher than Queen in a deck of cards. This simple, yet powerful, idea is one way of sparking conversation around the unconscious gender bias that surrounds us — because sometimes the bias we don’t see, is as damaging as the bias we do. — IWD
The campaign initiated a change in the playing rules of cards where the queen now trumped the king which allowed children and adults to question their beliefs and attitudes towards gender inequality while putting a spin on the traditional rules of cards.
FCB Inferno’s CCO Owen Lee added: So, the next time a little girl asks ‘Are Kings better than Queens?’, the answer will unequivocally be ‘No, it depends how you want to play the game.”
Check out, the queenrulesproject.com to find different card games that puts the Queen on top!
2: This Girl Can
Two million fewer women than men were exercising regularly in England, forming a large and stubborn gender gap. Women knew and understood the benefits of exercise, and what’s more, 75% of them aged 14–40 said they want to do more activity. — FCB Inferno
But they weren’t… Sport England wanted more women aged 14–40 to exercise regularly. The campaign, This Girl Can was born to generate behaviour change and influence.
So why did women feel that they couldn’t have a healthy lifestyle?
The fear of judgement, of their appearance, during and after exercise; on their ability, whether they were a beginner or ‘too good’; or for spending time exercising instead of prioritising their children or studies.
How can you participate? Check out the Activity Finder to get started with some exercise or create your own motivational poster with slogans and custom images to keep you closing the inequality gap!
3: FiftyFifty by IKEA and Zara Larsson
COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality challenges between home working and schooling with the addition of household chores. Looking at gender inequality starts from what we grow up with and how we take that to the ‘outside’ world of business.
IKEA with singer, Zara Larsson developed in collaboration with relationship expert Jennie Miller, FiftyFifty to question and celebrate everyday equality and inequality within households of families and housemates.
Did you know that women are doing up to three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men?
Revaluate and re-set your home life through open and honest conversation; helping to resolve any imbalances through the following questions:
Check out IKEA’s Instagram stories or read below with your household:
1. What’s the best thing about sharing a home with you? Don’t be modest.
2. Name the best and worst house chores.
3. How many hours a week do you spend on housework?
4. Do you do any behind-the-scenes housework that goes unnoticed?
5. What’s your worst home habit?
6. Ever think, “I’ll just get on and do it myself”, and then feel grumpy and unappreciated?
7. Pretend it’s before you moved in together. What talk do you wish you’d had in terms of responsibilities?
8. “One thing I appreciate my partner doing at home is…”
9. “One thing I could do more of at home is…”
4: Unequalopolis, experience real-life barriers to women’s economic participation in a trading game.
A board game to play as a family or as a group of friends or colleagues, think Monopoly but the spin is that women who play the game are put on a back foot from the start compared to men to represent the reality women face today with lower pay scales and opportunities compared to those of men.
You can download the printable board game or order the game here. (Nice to know, no profits are obtained from its sale.)
Share your impressions and comments with the hashtag #FinDevCanada and #FlipTheBoard
5: #MentorHer
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, Founder of LeanIn.org is pushing gender equality by asking men in the workplace to not hide but advocate and mentor women. It can be difficult to approach a woman in a friendly interaction and not appear to be harassing a colleague, relationships in the workplace can be a thin line but motives are always clear so make a positive intention to mentor and bridge the equality gap.
LeanIn.org and SurveyMonkey did a survey to understand the #MeToo era in the United Kingdom, it was found that senior-level men are 2x more hesitant to spend time with junior women than junior men across a range of basic work activities, including one-on-one meetings, travelling for work, and business dinners.
“If men think that the way to address workplace sexual harassment is to avoid one-on-one time with female colleagues — including meetings, coffee breaks and all the interactions that help us work together effectively — it will be a huge setback for women. This undoubtedly will decrease the opportunities women have at work. The last thing women need right now is even more isolation. Men vastly outnumber women as managers and senior leaders, so when they avoid, ice out or exclude women, we pay the price. Men who want to be on the right side of this issue shouldn’t avoid women. They should mentor them.” — Sheryl Sandberg
In addition, LeanIn.org have created the card game, 50 Ways to Fight Bias. A bias training activity that helps people recognize and combat the biases women face at work.
The game can be played digitally or the card game can be bought.
Speaking and advocating for change can be done in a more relaxed setting of playing games, doing a Salesforce Trailhead and allowing for genuine communication among loved ones. If we start within our homes and allow future generations to grow up with more equal thinking we can disrupt and remove the challenges we face in the workplace and how our interactions with colleagues don’t have to be daunting or to be discouraged. The goal is to try, being true in our intentions for a greater change and even greater societal success together as both male and female.
