Answer honestly:
* If the #MeToo movement didn’t happen, do you think women would have found a safe space and have the confidence to raise awareness of sexual abuse and assault?
* If gender pay gap reporting wasn’t made mandatory in 2017, would companies view the issue seriously? Do you think firms would’ve pushed for female senior leadership like they do today?
* If George Floyd’s death in 2020 didn’t become a global headline, would employers take racial bias in the workplace seriously?
* If the Equality Act 2010 didn’t come into play, would firms still decline someone based on their protected characteristics?
Regardless of the law, people around the world still face discrimination based on their age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. FACT.
Discrimination still remains a challenge to prove because it’s systemic and, like privilege, it works mostly in invisible ways.
PRIVILEGE
Some of you may argue that you don’t have or hold onto any type of privilege, but the truth is we’re all holding onto some sort of privilege, whether it’s the white male holding privilege over the white female, or the white female holding privilege over the black male. We all have unearned access to resources as a result of our advantaged social group membership.
If we take the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as an example, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the USA’s national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and racial inequality, an act that led to his dismissal by the NFL. As an employer, why did the NFL not support morality at that time?
Another example is when L’Oréal Paris made a statement to stand in solidarity with the Black community, and against injustice of any kind, which very quickly backfired (and rightly so) when it was pointed out that their former model, Munroe Bergdorf, was fired in 2017 for speaking out against racism. Her comeback remains my favourite to date:
Excuse my language but I am SO angry. FUCK YOU @lorealparis. You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy. With no duty of care, without a second thought.
During this time, it was interesting to see companies’ “morality” come into play when company statements had been released, and the black square across many social media platforms became a virtue signal of solidarity by brands, businesses, and influencers.
Unfortunately, for many of these firms, their attempt to jump on the bandwagon failed; many were accused of hypocrisy, and were called out for the lack of (or no) talent representation within their own businesses. The message was, and remains, clear actions speak louder than words. Fix these systemic issues instead of just speaking about them.
A few questions to ask ourselves and others: Why does it take a movement of some kind in order for someone to be heard, and for a company to do the ethically right thing? Do companies genuinely care about social issues, or is it a fashionable trend to say certain things at certain times? After all, many of them are mere vehicles for profit and tokenism, right?
Whatever your company’s stand may be, my advice to you is to be genuine, as we feel it when it’s not.
*All views expressed on this site are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated.