Ways Forward for Women in the Workplace

Television journalist and presenter Tracey Spicer was always the good girl. Inspired by Jana Wendt, this bogan from the Brisbane backwaters waded through the “cruel and shallow money trench” of television to land a dream role: national news anchor for a major network. But she found that, for women, TV was less about news and more about helmet hair, masses of makeup and fatuous fashion, in an era when bosses told you to “stick your tits out”, ‘lose two inches off your arse’, and “quit before you’re too long in the tooth”. In a tell-all book, Tracey Spicer has now stripped back the window dressing of the industry and its counterparts. On Tuesday 16 May 2017, Tracey Spicer addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss the problems for women in the workplace.

 

WAYS FORWARD FOR WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

 TRACEY SPICER

My memoir, The Good Girl Stripped Bare (2017), deconstructs discrimination against women and girls in the workplace and broader society.

Much has been written about the tools being used to this end, including gender pay audits, mentoring, sponsorship, targets, quotas, leaning in, flexibility, job share, and policies to prevent sexual harassment, unconscious bias, and maternity discrimination. But there is one tool more powerful than all of these. It’s THIS: a crowbar can clear the way for women in the workforce.

Before I explain why and (probably as importantly) how I’ve managed to smuggle a large metal weapon past security at the Sydney Institute in Governor Phillip Tower, I’ll outline the reasons this issue is critical.

Feel free to call me a “bleeding heart”: equality is a fundamental right. John Colvin, CEO and Managing Director of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, takes it further. “It’s not only good social policy,” he says, “but it makes good business sense that our boards and companies benefit from all the talents that is available to them.”

Discrimination is bad for business; diversity is good for the bottom line.

Let’s take a moment to drill down on the business case for diversity because – for many years – the research was equivocal. Currently, four out of every five board members across the largest Australian businesses identify as male – an overwhelming majority. Despite our rate of female workforce participation being high – around 70 per cent – Australia is well below the OECD average on board representation (The 100% Project, 2016).

A recent long-term study by the La Trobe Business School (2015), of 300 of our top 500 listed companies, finds an increase in return on assets and equity, market value, and cash flow, corresponding with a rise in the number of female directors. And it rules out that this is coincidental, by taking into account firm-specific and governance variables. Subsequent tests confirm, “it is board diversity that affects performance, not the opposite” (p. 424)

 

Another study, by the Centre for Gender Economics and Innovation at Infinitas Asset Management (reported by Khadem, SMH, 2015), reveals this:

 

Australian companies with gender-diverse boards (at least 25 per cent female) perform an average of 2 per cent better per year than ASX200 companies, and more than seven per cent better than companies with no women on their boards.

This is echoed globally.

The landmark McKinsey paper, “Diversity Matters” (Hunt et al, 2015), concludes companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 per cent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. We’re talking about boards and management here. In the UK, greater gender diversity on the senior-executive team sees the highest performance uplift in the data set: for every 10 per cent increase in gender diversity, earnings before interest and taxes go up by 3.5 percent.

So, here’s the multi-billion-dollar question: Do we use carrots or a bloody big stick to achieve diversity? There’s no doubt quotas work. But are they too tainted by the backlash? And are targets actually better? Targets are a “pull” method of compliance, while quotas work on the “push”. It’s a bit like hubby or me telling the kids to do their homework, because they a) get a chocolate or b) risk a smack on the bum.

Threats work a treat in the short-term, but rewards yield longer-term results, according to the latest research.

Quotas have worked in Norway, and are now in place in Finland, Iceland, Spain, France and the Netherlands. However – and it’s a big “but” – it’s done nothing for women in executive positions in the pipeline, nor has there been real cultural change (Birley, 2015). As Laura Birley, director of People Dynamics at HR Central, discovered in her insightful research, quotas don’t change the corporate culture by addressing conscious and unconscious biases, nor do they fix the structural problems of flexibility, gender pay gap, or child-care.

So, quotas are a circuit breaker – but they’re not enough.

Birley believes the Australian Institute of Company Directors has it right with a target of 30 per cent female board representation by 2018, and “game changing” measures to clear the pipeline “from the schoolroom to the boardroom”. In fact, since 2009 – when the Australian Stock Exchange introduced its gender guidelines on board composition – the proportion of women on ASX 200 boards has risen from 8.3 per cent to around 20 per cent.

But here’s the bad news: progress is stalling. And it’s not because of a lack of experienced women. They’re available – in fact, four out of five male directors in the ASX 200 had no prior board experience, compared with only three out of five women – but there’s inherent bias against them.

Now, we all like to be surrounded by birds of a feather. There’s a reason why people say new appointees should be a “good fit”. What we’re seeing are the dynamics of the old boys’ club being played out, time and again. Much of this is happening under the spurious banner of “merit”. Let me be clear: Meritocracyland might as well be next to Fantasyland in Anaheim, California.

How can the best qualified CEOs all be private school-educated white men, whose fathers worked in business and mothers stayed at home? These are the findings of Dr. Terrance Fitzsimmons from the University of Queensland Business School (Momentum, 2012). Incidentally, almost all were captains of their school football teams. It’s a pretty shallow pool. If diversity is indeed good for the bottom line, surely this disproves the concept of past appointments being made on “merit”.

I’m going to spend some time on unconscious bias – although, please, let’s call it “subconscious bias”, because no one makes decisions while comatose.  In 1970, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra comprised only 10 per cent women. So, they brought in blind auditions. (Similar to The Voice, but a little more highbrow.) Now, female representation has reached 45% (Birley, 2015). 

You know, I could spout statistics at you for hours. But I know from my communications studies that the best way to influence opinion and change behaviour – aside from a little carrot and stick, and maybe the odd crowbar – is through storytelling.

Here are three examples of subconscious bias playing out in my working life. After asking for a pay rise, as a young newsreader at Network Ten in Brisbane, I’m told, “You don’t need any more money! You’ll do this job for a couple of years then marry a nice businessman. After that, you’ll never have to work another day in your life.” Honestly, I feel like the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman, except without charging anyone for sex.

While pregnant with my first child, I’m told by a producer at Ten Sydney, “Oh, you won’t want to come back to work! Most women don’t, after having children. Put your feet up and relax. Be a yummy mummy.” Eventually, I’m sidelined after the birth of Taj and sacked a few months after having Grace. But my husband, who’s in the same workplace, is given a pay rise because, “Well, you’re the breadwinner of the family, now. You’ve got mouths to feed.”

This aspect of subconscious bias is called the motherhood penalty and fatherhood bonus: men’s earnings increase more than 6 percent when they have children, while women’s decrease four per cent for each child, according to research by Michelle Budig (2014)  at the University of Massachusetts.

Those personal experiences were between 10 and 25 years ago. But bias is built into the structure of our workplaces, lined with a wallpaper of misogyny. Women are still seen as primarily child rearers and – secondarily – workers. It’s as if we’re appendages of others – wife, mother, daughter – rather than fully-formed human beings.

As CEO of a California software company, and husband of a doctor and professor, Max Schireson was never asked how he managed to combine work and family, a question his wife faced constantly. Well, guess what? He was the one who eventually quit, because he wanted to spend more time with their three kids (Kaufman, 2014). Let me be clear: mothers are not necessarily more nurturing than fathers. Pop that one in the box with women-aren’t-as-smart-as-men-because-their-brains-are-smaller.

Unfortunately, bias training isn’t working: it’s reinforcing our predispositions.

“Experts seem to think that’s because they rationalise it and probably think that if everyone has biases then you can’t do much to change them,” author of Stop Fixing Women, Catherine Fox (2017), says. “The most effective work is running more than a ‘sheep dip’ effort and getting people to not only understand they have bias, but how they need to deal with circuit breaking it, particularly in decision making, even by using a check list,” she says.

We need to combat bias to close the gender pay gap, which is currently 23 per cent. On average, that’s $27,000 a year. It starts early: men entering the workforce out of graduate programs earn between 2.9 and 8 per cent more than women with the same degrees (BCEC-WGEA, 2017, p.7).

The reasons are multifaceted. Aside from external bias, there’s internalised misogyny, and a dose of good girl syndrome. (If you’re a woman of a certain age, you’ll know the mantra: sit quietly, don’t speak, cross your legs, be polite, serve the scones, and never discuss the nasty business of money. That’s a good girl!)

Men have an advantage over women in wage negotiations because, “they’re expected to assert self-interest and claim value”, according to a study by Kray, Thompson and Galinsky (2001) published by the American Psychological Association, “whereas women are expected to act in a more yielding and agreeable manner”. In other words, “Don’t be a bossy bitch”.

Bossy has always been a gendered insult. The earliest citation in the Oxford English dictionary refers to a sentence from 1882 stating, “There was a lady manager who was dreadfully bossy”. As author and technology executive Sheryl Sandberg writes, one-in-three “bossy women” are seen as “not at all popular” while only one-in-five men are rated the same (Clerkin et al, 2015).

At Harvard University, Bowles, Babcock and Lai (2005) demonstrated in a series of experiments, “evaluators were significantly less inclined to work with a woman who initiated compensation negotiations as compared to one who did not, because they found her overly demanding and lacking in niceness”.  And you may have heard about the famed Howard versus Heidi experiment, conducted at Columbia Business School (Katsarou, 2015).

Researchers presented students with a story of a successful entrepreneur: half were told it was “Heidi”, while the rest believed it to be “Howard”. The same data with only the name changed created vastly different impressions. Howard was seen as a more appealing colleague; Heidi was selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work for”.

Women face a double-bind: “Lean in” too much and we’re unlikable; lean back and we stay stuck to the floor.

Not long after I came back from my first round of maternity leave, I remember going in for contract negotiations.  So desperate was I to be liked, that I told the boss not to worry about a pay rise. “I feel privileged just working here,” I said. “Terrific news,” he replied, shutting his manila folder. “That leaves me more money in the kitty for those demanding blokes”.

This is how we internalise misogyny, with devastating consequences. A generation of women will retire in poverty, after working their entire lives, with half of the superannuation of their male colleagues (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2011).

But narrowing the gender pay gap isn’t just about social justice: it delivers economic growth and boosts productivity. A study published yesterday on The Conversation website (Kennedy et al, 2017) reveals eliminating our gender wage gap would lift long-term labour productivity growth 5.7 per cent, by making it easier for companies to attract and retain talent, and incentivising individuals to maximise their effort.

By the way, this is not a left/right issue: In 2015, then British Prime Minister David Cameron established a rule requiring all companies with 250 or more employees to share information on the average pay that their male and female workers receive to, “cast sunlight on the discrepancies and create the pressure we need for change, driving women’s wages up” (Rigby, 2015).

In Australia, new reporting requirements were brought in last year (WGEA, 2016), but they don’t go far enough. We need gender pay audits at all Australian companies. After all, this is what companies do if anything else is affecting productivity: do the sums and work out how to fix it.

Inkling Women, which has done hundreds of such audits, discovered only one organisation where women were paid more than men, by a rate of a whopping – wait for it – 0.8 per cent. In the rest, men were paid much more than women, doing the same jobs (Senate Economic Reference Committee, 2016). The gender pay gap is largely due to motherhood, according to a report published last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cain Miller, 2017). Pregnancy discrimination is estimated to affect one-in-two women in the Australian workforce (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014), a figure which has barely budged in decades. If they are welcomed back, it’s often onto the “mummy track”.

Most women play a “two-level game”, negotiating flexibility at work, and at help at home (Bowles and McGinn, 2008). When children enter the picture, families sit down to do the maths. Men out-earn women, so the mother usually ends up as the primary carer, sometimes leaving the workforce for good because of the cost of childcare. According to the OECD, young mothers at home represent the “greatest untapped potential” in the Australian workforce.

I could spend all night talking to you about how our childcare system is broken. Governments of both sides generously increase support to families to pay for the fees. But the privately-run centres jack up their charges commensurately. Surely it’s preferable to have a public childcare system, which assists all women and men to re-enter the workforce. I mean, this would mean more taxpayers, right? And fewer folks on welfare. It’s win-win.

At the moment, childcare is a cost of doing business for which women pay too high a price.

In any case, why is it only the mother’s responsibility? Isn’t her partner – if she has one – responsible for raising the child as well? And if he works full-time, at least half of the cost of care should come out of his pocket. It’s lazy and sexist to lean on the historical narrative of, “Well, it’s easier for her to stay at home because the fees eat up most of her wages”. This is what we feminists used to call “domestic servitude”.

But the biggest barrier to equality is the inequitable distribution of household labour: research shows more responsibility at home means less income at work (Bowles and McGinn, 2008). If we tally up the value of unpaid childcare to our economy, it would be around $345 billion. A report from PwC (2017) asks this: “Why is it that a mother caring for her children produces no measured economic value, but the same mother hiring others to look after her children does?”

We need to put a price on caring. It should be factored into our federal accounts. This would add status to the roles women traditionally play in society, of caring for children and the elderly. And, frankly, blokes should pull up their socks around the house. Women still do twice as much housework as men, regardless of whether they’re in paid work, as well. In fact, higher-earning women tend to do more, to fit society’s mould of the selfless female (Chicago Booth, 2013). If you count the extra time we spend in school canteens, and volunteering in the community, really, we’re the glue holding society together. (Indeed, some days I feel like an old Clag stick…)

You know, there are hundreds of thousands of men across Australia who’d like to play a bigger role in caring responsibilities and unpaid work, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies (Baxter and Smart, 2011). But two-in-three fathers say they can’t access the work arrangements to do so.

They feel that asking for flexibility or job share means they’re taken less seriously in the workplace. After all, they’ve seen this happen to countless female colleagues.

Interestingly, a study of more than 1000 Australian workers finds women with flexible hours are more likely to succeed, while men – who are twice as likely to have their flexible work requests rejected – feel judged, less confident and committed, and believe their careers are jeopardised (Bain & Company and Chief Executive Women in Khadem, 2016).

There are successful policies in place at Westpac – where more than 63 per cent of employees working flexibly – and Telstra, with its “All Roles Flex” commitment. But a report by Bain & Company and Chief Executive Women shows the stigma attached to men and flexibility leads to a low uptake. One man quoted in the report says, “My boss told me I wouldn’t be able to get promoted working part-time.”

In fact, the Australian Human Rights Commission (quoted in Khadem, 2016) reckons around one-in-four fathers and partners are discriminated against, despite taking only a short period of parental leave. Overall, Meredith Hellicar from Chief Executive Women says men are 10-15 years behind women in adopting flexible working. You can see that equality in the workplace is not only good for women. It’s good for men. It’s good for families. It’s good for society.

Men of my husband’s generation are desperate to spend more time with their children. They don’t want to make the same mistakes as their absent fathers. If we want to clear the path for women to participate fully in the workplace, we need to clear the path for men to participate fully at home. But it’s going to take a lot more than gender pay audits, mentoring, sponsorship, targets, quotas, leaning in, flexibility, job share, and policies to prevent sexual harassment, unconscious bias, and maternity or paternity discrimination.

I’m the mother of a 10-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy. My husband and I share parenting and household duties 50/50. But, so often, when I hear a conversation between our kids and their classmates, I want to say, “Gee, the 1950s called. They want their attitude back.”

Girls are being criticised for being bossy, instead of assertive. Their interests – whether in sports, films or books – are denigrated. And they’re still earning less pocket money than boys.

A couple of years ago, I’m ashamed to admit we discovered a gender pay gap in our own household. In the hastily scribbled pocket money chart on the fridge, we’d weighted outside jobs, like taking the rubbish to the bin, more heavily than inside jobs, like cooking a meal. As hubby does all the cleaning and I do all the cooking, our son was drawn to what he saw as the masculine tasks, while our daughter wanted to work with me in the kitchen. If you extrapolate this example to the workplace, it’s similar to bricklayers being paid a higher hourly rate than hairdressers, despite each requiring a similar amount of training.

While it’s okay – in fact, encouraged – these days for girls to act as tomboys, boys who show an interest in anything slightly feminine are pilloried as “sissies”. (Shockingly, homophobic language abounds in our school grounds.)   So, girls are internalising this misogyny, believing they’re less valuable than their male classmates. And boys are clinging to the old-school power structures, which have benefited them for centuries.

Yesterday, I gave a speech to the Year 6 classes at the kids’ school. The boys putting up their hands to answer questions outnumbered the girls, two-to-one. You could see the reticence on the girls’ faces; the fear of being “picked on”, the uncertainty about claiming their space.

We need to reframe the traits of leadership, for girls and women.

As Professor Roxane Gay (2015) writes:

 

Professional women are largely defined in relation to professional men. (The book) Lean In’s loudest unspoken advice seems to dictate that women should embrace masculine qualities (self-confidence, risk-taking, aggression, etc.). How do you create a space in the workplace for more subtle forms of power and negotiation? How do you create such spaces without condescension or treating women as less capable than their male counterparts?

Part of the answer is teaching boys it’s okay to aspire to work in female-dominated occupations. That the caring professions aren’t exclusively for women, in the same way STEM careers aren’t only for men. And that the era of neurosexism is over. Cordelia Fine, author of Delusions of Gender and Testosterone Rex, roundly debunks the stereotyping evident in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. But there are still pockets in society which cling to this junk science.

Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Libby Lyons, puts it like this [WGEA, 2016]:

 

While we recognise the need to attract more women into skilled technical roles, we are not doing anything to encourage men into female-dominated industries and jobs. In fact, between 1995 and 2015, ABS statistics show we have actually seen a decline in the proportion of men in Australia’s two female-dominated industries of health care and social assistance, and education and training. We also need to reject notions that men are not “caring” as this could unintentionally steer capable men away from jobs they would do well in and, just like the STEM-based industries, our health, social assistance and education sectors will also thrive with different perspectives and access to the best talent; in other words a diverse workforce.

 

Getting more men into female-dominated industries has the added benefit of lifting the rates of pay for everyone. The WGEA’s research shows occupational gender segregation remains persistent over the past 20 years (WGEA Fact Sheet, 2016). (Actually, the senate is investigating segregation in the workplace, with a report due in June (Parliament of Australia, 2017).)

Sure, Ben Stiller being maligned for choosing nursing as a career makes for a lot of laughs in the movie Meet the Parents. But we should consider the deeper cultural assumptions beneath the mockery of men in such workplaces.  One of the most disturbing reactions to women making their way in male-dominated fields is the incidence of sexual harassment. Believe it or not, some women are still being told to “shut up and take it”, if they want to continue their careers.

There’s a school of thought that harassment spikes as women reach around 30 per cent of the workplace, as a form of backlash. Senior vascular surgeon, Dr Gabrielle McMullin, is blowing the whistle on the scourge of sexual harassment in Australian hospitals (Lillebuen, 2015). Believe it or not, she says giving in to harassment, including being propositioned for sex, is an easier path for young women hoping to make it in the profession:

“What I tell my trainees is that, if you are approached for sex, probably the safest thing to do in terms of your career is to comply with the request,” Dr. McMullin says. “The worst thing you could possibly do is to complain to the supervising body, because … you can be sure that you will never be appointed to a major public hospital.”

Unfortunately, the “casting couch” remains a part of professional life. My memoir outlines countless times being grabbed, groped, and propositioned.

Six weeks after my mother passed away, I return to work on the day of compliance training. That night WAS the Christmas party. Around 9pm, I felt someone grope my bum. I swung around to slap the assailant across the face. It was one of the senior executives, so I slowly lowered my hand. He complimented me on having a “nice arse” and asked whether I’d lost weight lately. I replied that I’d found it difficult to eat, due to grieving over my beloved mother. “Lookin’ good!” he slurred, before staggering away.

Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power. And the culture in many industries – including the media – rewards the offenders and punishes the victims. A couple of years ago, at Radio 2UE, a young producer asked me for advice. Each weekend, one of the hosts would put his hand up her skirt and grab her underpants. There was no HR Department, so she went to one of the managers. He told her to wear jeans in future, so the host couldn’t get his hand up there.

Now, the media reflects and shapes society. What does it say about all of us that our powerful institutions – media, politics and business – are hotbeds of indecent assault?

I’m the co-founder and national convenor of Women in Media. Last year, our Mates Over Merit report (MEAA, 2016), conducted with iSentia, revealed workplaces rife with sexual harassment, pay disparities and the old boys’ network. In the pages of newspapers, over the radio airwaves, and on television screens, you read, hear and see plenty of women. But they occupy the lower paid, less powerful, roles. This will not change unless executives acknowledge the gravity of this situation.

Aside from our regular mentoring and networking sessions, we’re calling for gender pay audits and action, harassment policies to be put into practice, rather than languish at the bottom of someone’s drawer, and protection from gendered online bullying. Another strategy is getting younger women to “reverse mentor” senior men, describing to them what it’s really like within the organisation.

This is an extension of the international research showing CEOs with daughters have more female-friendly policies in their workplaces. Why? Well, they don’t want their hard-earned coin, spent on privately-educating high-achieving daughters, to be wasted.

What I’ve realised after 30 years in the workforce is that my skills and abilities aren’t enough. It’s all very well and good to have audits, mentoring, sponsorship, targets, quotas, leaning in, flexibility, job share, and policies to prevent sexual harassment, unconscious bias, and parental discrimination. But that’s not enough, either.

As mathematician Katherine Johnson found at the Langley Research Centre in Virginia, legislation to prevent discrimination is mighty fine. But it’s not enough.

You might know Johnson’s story from the award-winning film, Hidden Figures. In the movie, it took someone – her boss, in this case – to wield a crowbar, tearing down the signs segregating the white and coloured toilets. She couldn’t do her job to the full depth and breadth of her ability because she had to run half-a-mile across the Langley campus to get to the “appropriate” toilet (Video: Hidden Figures bathroom speech scene). Of course, Katherine’s case is one of intersectional discrimination: she was marginalised because of her race and her gender.

For the sake of all women – especially Muslim, Indigenous and immigrant women, those with different physical abilities and the many in our gay or transgender communities – we need to take a crowbar to the culture that holds us back.

It’s infuriating how much time and energy are spent on telling women what they should do to fit into workplaces: be more like a man; be less like a man; you’re the one who wears the pants; wear a skirt to be more feminine; be stronger in negotiation; don’t be so bossy. To quote Catherine Fox (2017), STOP FIXING WOMEN. And start prising off the barriers which have been there since the Industrial Revolution, when the workplace was created by men, for men. Tear down that wallpaper of misogyny. And, to paraphrase Elizabeth Broderick (2010), remove the gender asbestos within the walls.

While the measures I’ve outlined over the past half-an-hour are proven to be effective, there seems to be a reticence to put them into place, aside from the occasional example of “pink washing”. The way forward is for bosses to take a crowbar to the blokey culture in the workplace, to make it more equitable, productive and profitable.

In Hidden Figures, when Kevin Costner’s character lets his tool do the talking, it allows Katherine Johnson to send John Glenn into space. If those in power in corporate Australia assist women to reach their full potential, business – and those who work and invest in it – can only flourish.

Here – you can borrow my crowbar.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Australian Human Rights Commission (2011), “The gender gap in retirement savings”, https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/gender-gap-retirement-savings

 

Australian Human Rights Commission (2014), “Report: pregnancy and return to work discrimination costs everyone” – https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/media-releases/report-pregnancy-and-return-work-discrimination-costs-everyone

 

BCEC|WGEA (2017), “Insights 2017: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap”, Workplace Gender Equality Agency – https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/BCEC%20WGEA%20Gender%20Pay%20Equity%20Insights%202017%20Report.pdf

 

Baxter, Jennifer and Diana Smart (2011), “Fathering in Australia among couple families with young children: Research highlights”, Family Matters No. 88 – August 2011, Australian Institute of Family Studies – https://aifs.gov.au/publications/family-matters/issue-88/fathering-australia-among-couple-families-young-children

 

Birley, Laura (2015), “The Merits and Effectiveness of Quotas vs Targets in the Gender Diversity Debate on Boards, University of Melbourne Law School, 9 March – http://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/cclsr/research/research-reports-and-research-papers?a=1709447

 

Bowles, Hannah Riley, Linda Babcock and Lei Lai (2005), “Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask”, Science Direct, Harvard University – https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf

 

Bowles, Hannah Riley and Kathleen L McGinn (2008), “Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two Level Game”, Harvard Business School – http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/08-095.pdf

 

Broderick, Elizabeth (2010), “Gender equality in the workforce: A feminist approach”, Our Work Our Lives: 3rd National Conference on Women and Industrial Relations, Darwin Convention Centre: 12-13 August, Australian Human Rights Commission – https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/speeches/gender-equality-workforce-feminist-approach-2010

 

Budig, Michelle J (2014), “The Fatherhood Bonus and The Motherhood Penalty: Parenthood and the Gender Gap in Pay”, Third Way Fresh Thinking,  2 September – http://www.thirdway.org/report/the-fatherhood-bonus-and-the-motherhood-penalty-parenthood-and-the-gender-gap-in-pay

 

Cain Miller, Claire (2017), The Gender Pay Gap is Largely Because of Motherhood”, New York Times, 13 May – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html

 

Chicago Booth (2013), “When women earn more than their husbands”, University of Chicago Booth, Media Release, 18 February – https://newschicagobooth.uchicago.edu/about/newsroom/news/2013/2013-02-18-bertrand

 

Clerkin, Cathleen, Christine A. Crumbacher, Julia Fernando, and William A. (Bill) Gentry (2015), “Bossy: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?”, Centre for Creative Leadership – http://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bossy2.pdf

 

Colvin, John (2013), quoted in Alireza Vafaei, Kamran Ahmed, and Paul Mather (2015), “Board Diversity and Financial Performance in the Top 500 Australian Firms”, Australian Accounting Review No. 75 Vol. 25 Issue 4, p. 421 – https://www.future-you.com.au/media/futureyou/vafaei.-ahmed.-mather-2015-final.pdf

 

Duguid, MM and MC Thomas-Hunt (2015), “Condoning stereotyping? How awareness of stereotyping prevalence impacts expression of stereotypes” (Abstract),  Journal of Applied Psychology, March, 100(2), pp. 343-59 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25314368 See also a report on this research at: Women in the C-Suite, “How unconscious bias training can make things worse!” – http://womeninthecsuite.com.au/Is-unconscious-bias-training-making-things-worse.html

 

Fox, Catherine (2017), Stop Fixing Women, NewSouth Publishing – http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/books/stop-fixing-women-catherine-fox/p/9781742235165

 

Gay, Roxane (2015), “Women shouldn’t have to lead like men to be successful”, Fortune, 13 February – http://fortune.com/2015/02/12/women-shouldnt-have-to-lead-like-men-to-be-successful/

 

“Hidden Figures bathroom scene speech”, YouTube video –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j6p7ajuh-E

 

Hunt, Vivian, Dennis Layton and Sara Prince (2015), “Diversity Matters”, McKinsey & Company, 2 February – http://www.diversitas.co.nz/Portals/25/Docs/Diversity%20Matters.pdf

 

Katsarou, Maria (2015), “Women and the Leadership Labyrinth: Howard vs Heidi”, Leadership Psychology Institute, 20 February – http://www.leadershippsychologyinstitute.com/women-the-leadership-labyrinth-howard-vs-heidi/

 

Kaufman, Alexander C (2014), “CEO steps down be a better dad”, Huffington Post Australia, 7 August – http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/max-schireson-ceo-steps-down-dad_n_5654310

 

Kennedy, Tom, Abbas Valadkhani, Alison Sheridan and Maria Rae (2017), “The gender pay gap is hurting productivity”, The Conversation, 15 May – https://theconversation.com/the-gender-pay-gap-is-hurting-productivity-76780

 

Khadem, Nassim (2016), Flexible work a career killer for men: report, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February – http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/men-who-work-flexibly-dont-get-promotions-report-20160202-gmjcxh.html

 

Khadem, Nassim (2015), “More women equals more profits, so why are we still lacking diversity on boards?”, report on Centre for Gender Economics and Innovation and Infinitas Asset Management (2015), Index, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April – http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/more-women-equals-more-profits-so-why-are-we-still-lacking-diversity-on-boards-20150423-1mrram.html See also:  Kerin, Linda (2015), “Boards featuring women perform better than all-male ones, Centre for Gender Economics and Innovation study finds”, ABC News, 23 April- http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-23/boards-featuring-women-perform-better-than-all-male-ones/6415828

 

Kray, Laura J, Lee Thompson and Adam Galinsky (2001), “Battle of the Sexes: Gender Stereotype Confir15mation and Reactance in Negotiations”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 80, No. 6, pp. 942-958 – http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/online_marketing/facultyCV/papers/kray_paper2001.pdf Also discussed in:  Bowles, Hannah Riley and Kathleen L McGinn (2008), “Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two Level Game”, Harvard Business School – http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/08-095.pdf

 

La Trobe Business School – Alireza Vafaei, Kamran Ahmed and Paul Mather, (2015), “Board Diversity and Financial Performance in the Top 500 Australian Firms”, Australian Accounting Review No. 75 Vol. 25 Issue 4 – https://www.future-you.com.au/media/futureyou/vafaei.-ahmed.-mather-2015-final.pdf See also a report on this study at: Khadem, Nassim (2016) “ASX 500 Companies that Employ More Women Make More Profit, Study Shows” Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March – http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/asx-500-companies-that-employ-more-women-make-more-profit-study-shows-20160307-gnccnz.html

 

Lillebuen, Steve (2015), “Senior surgeon Gabrielle McMullin stands by advice for female doctors to stay silent on sex abuse”, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March – http://www.smh.com.au/national/senior-surgeon-gabrielle-mcmullin-stands-by-advice-for-female-doctors-to-stay-silent-on-sex-abuse-20150307-13xzog.html

 

MEAA (2016), “Mates Over Merit: The Women In Media Report”, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, 3 June – https://www.meaa.org/mediaroom/mates-over-merit-the-women-in-media-report-2/

 

Momentum (2012), “Women at the Top”, report on research by Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons, UQ Business School, May – https://www.business.uq.edu.au/momentum/women-top

 

Parliament of Australia (2017), “Gender segregation in the workplace and its impact on women’s economic equality”, Parliamentary Business – http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Finance_and_Public_Administration/Gendersegregation

 

Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2017), “Understanding the unpaid economy” – http://www.pwc.com.au/australia-in-transition/publications/understanding-the-unpaid-economy-mar17.pdf

 

Rigby, Elizabeth (2015), “UK Companies Told to Publish Gender Pay Audits”, Financial Times, 14 July – https://www.ft.com/content/3f1dfadc-297a-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca

 

Senate Economic References Committee (2016), “’A husband is not a retirement plan’ Achieving economic security for women in retirement”, Parliament of Australia, 29 April – http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/Economic_security_for_women_in_retirement/Report

 

Spicer, Tracey (2017), The Good Girl Stripped Bare, Harper Collins Australia – http://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780733335631/

 

The 100 Percent Project (2016), “No ‘fair go’ yet for women in Australia”, 23 May – http://the100percentproject.com.au/2016/05/no-fair-go-yet-for-women-in-australia/

 

WGEA (2016), “Gender reporting in 2016: what’s changed?”, Workplace Gender Equality Agency – https://www.wgea.gov.au/wgea-newsroom/gender-reporting-2016-whats-changed

 

WGEA (2016), Fact Sheet: Gender segregation in Australia’s workforce, August – https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/20160801_Industry_occupational_segregation_factsheet.pdf