Gender Bias: the new sexual harassment

I have a problem and my problem is not wanting to be the problem and that makes it difficult when there are issues that need to be resolved with regard to gender differences and the way that people are treated in the workplace.

It’s also hard to get support because nobody else wants to be part of the problem either in fact everybody else wants to get as far away from the problems as they can while pretending that the problem does not exist.

Now I don’t mean to say that gender bias has never existed in the past it certainly has however today’s age has been so focused on sexual-harassment and the abuse of women in that way that the nuances of gender bias tend to go by the wayside.

In the military in particular you will find gender bias is still embedded very heavily in units given the majority male population. In these units, although you find a very diverse set of folks from a very diverse set of backgrounds, there is still an over reliance on stereotypes to dictate first impressions. Often times, the lower and lower middle classes economically make up the majority of folks who enter the service and they often come from less exposure and or education on the implications of bias. This does not hold true for every individual, and the trends continues on a more positive path today, but it is a common enough variable to contribute to the prominent issues that still plague the services.

To make matters worse, many of the senior leaders who have come up through the ranks and developed and grown in their careers, continue to ignorantly perpetuate the biases. They have followed the advances of the Navy’s policies regarding women and these issues and will celebrate the reformed chauvinistic approaches. Often they have grown up in a very macho male dominated culture and climate so they feel that they are supportive and there for their their female counterparts just by not ascribing to that stereotype. They don't realize how much more they need to do to set the example as leaders.

Often they are supportive, but they tend to still be operating from their own internal biases which have been developed throughout their careers. They don't see how that manifests a culture of demeaning and derogatory behavior towards females in their units. When they are confronted by the issues, they’re unwilling to accept that they have failed. They don't recognize the disconnect between what they have voiced and preached and what is actually happening. They think of how supportive they are and think it's impossible that anything they do could be having ill effects. Therefore the culture continues to degrade and the environment continues to become more and more hostile with the male to female ratio or around 60 to 1 dominating the climate.

Let's look at a personal example. I was sitting around the usual staff meeting with all the division directors/branch heads. In these meetings we tend to go around the table so that each division can offer their latest updates and progress of goals for the organization and suggestions on other things that could be done. When it became time for my division's update, I gave our latest status, but instead of the boss moving on to the next division (like he did every other time), he paused and turned to my male deputy and essentially asked him if he agreed. Now my deputy and I talk before each meeting because we know how important it is for a team to be aligned, so my deputy was taken aback by this action just as much as I was. So he concurred and the meeting moved on. I, however, was not very happy. I went to the boss's office shortly after to have a quick conversation and share my observation. The boss had always espoused how important equality was, so I mistakenly believed he would be open to the discussion. That was not the case. He became immediately defensive and denied the entire event. He was so afraid of being accused of something that he couldn't even take supportive feedback intended to help make him self-aware and grow. I hadn't gone in there to attack or blame him, and I certainly didn't think he had intended any harm, but I knew this was an important topic for him so I wanted to share how his unconscious bias had played out so he would know. Fear won out in that engagement.

In another example, I have often given and seen other women give great ideas in team settings that are often pushed aside. However fast forward a few weeks and a male team member regurgitates the same idea and it is adopted and hailed as the next great step in our team progress. Even when the men do initially like the females comments, if you watch the body language, most of them will look around to gauge interest from the other males first before verbalizing support. It's not that they aren't supportive, but the fear and ego is a tall wall to climb when it has been so ingrained in the culture.

One of the worst issues is when a women is being harassed but is afraid to seek support because she doesn't want the label of being the problem. We make these topics so much harder to talk about because we tie them to our worth as individuals rather than the set of unconscious biases they represent from how our world has shaped us. This lack of wilingness to confront and discuss these topics often creates a hostile workplace for many women. Only they are often also the only ones who see or feel it, thus making it even harder to speak up. They are expected to just "not be so sensitive" or "don't overreact" to disparaging comments, no matter how benign, but fast forward 18 months and those things really add up mentally and emotionally as abuse.,

The women feel repressed, undermined, and demeaned despite working with seemingly nice people. And be aware that this also empowers the not so nice people to take more aggressive actions. If you show me an organization that has experienced some form of sexual assault or harassment, I bet I can find hostile workplace undertones and unconscious bias running rampant and unchecked. That brings us right back to the role of leadership. Those leaders can't just talk the talk, they have to continuously promote growth and education to support walking the walk and be advocates in deed and not just words.

Leaders should also listen. Know that if you have females in your charge who are bringing and issue to your attention, most of the time they have already a) tried to resolve it, b) second guessed themselves and tried a 100 different approaches to the situation to ensure they are not the problem first, and c) are the most courageous and brilliant women on your team because they want the team to succeed and that's why they are coming to you, it's not about them, its about having a healthy team. They take a lot of risk in even coming to you, because they know it's not the aggressors who get labelled in these situations, it's the victims.

These women who offer feedback are your smartest and toughest talent. So take them seriously and take actions to adjust the course of your organizational culture. Letting gender bias's fester prevent you from taking advantage of the amazing talent you have on hand. It negatively affects productivity and has the potential to negatively affect your organization's leaders and reputation. If your women aren't speaking up....you should start paying attention.