Genderwashing

We all know about brands that are greenwashing, but is your company genderwashing - as Will Hogg, MD of Kinetic Consulting calls it?

Some dinosaur companies aren’t even thinking about gender equality, some (not enough!) are making progress. And in between, there are many that know they need to be seen by their Boards & Leadership Teams to be working on it, so they are talking a good game but, on closer inspection, there’s a lot of talk and not much actual walk.

A few classic signs of genderwashing:

Proudly announcing that your company has 50/50 representation but going very quiet when asked if they also have 50/50 at their top management levels.

Celebrating that they have reached the ‘target’ of having women as 30% of their Board (as if women are only 30% of the population, intelligence and capability of the world.)

Claiming to be driving gender equality but not analyzing and sharing their gender pay gap data, unless they are forced to do so by law.

In a way, the genderwashing companies are even worse than the dinosaurs, because they are camouflaging the issues. We can only fix something when we can see it and understand it beneath the surface level. So we need to start calling this out when we see it. We need to ask the penetrating questions, probe beneath the politically correct claims and not be afraid to shout out ‘Genderwashing!’ very loudly when we find it.

Their Board & Leadership Teams won’t like that.