Dec 21, 2018
Women in Data Christmas Reflection
Christmas can be a difficult time of year with festive celebrations and Christmas shopping to be done, but regardless we had an amazing end of year Women in Data event!
I imagine by now you are either sitting in the sun with a drink in hand or having a lazy day with your feet up (hopefully without the kids around) after a well- deserved break following the year it has been! For all of you who missed out on the final Women in Data event for 2018, I’ve given an overview of what happened on the night and the actions we are going to take for 2019.
What a perfect time to reflect on what has happened throughout the year, perhaps now is a suitable time to set goals for the new year and include the steps you will take to create diversity in the workplace.
The main focus of the Christmas Women in Data event was to understand feminism, the personal challenges, the business challenges and to find some solutions we can implement in 2019 to make a more diverse future for our children and the generations to follow.
Are you a feminist?
There are a lot of different views on the ‘F word’ and I surely didn’t think I’d be one (alongside many others at the event) but after answering this short list of questions we soon found out that our thinking was completely wrong! See below a simple set of questions to identify what your underlying values are in relation to the definition.
If you answered no to the top three points and yes to the bottom three points, you are a feminist.
The underlying question is why we are focusing on Feminism. It is the characteristic that underpins the challenges of diversity in the workplace. The workplace is only a minor part of society where diversity is an issue, below are some examples-
If we don’t recognise these issues in the workplace, other aspects of our society will be affected. It is almost like a bottom up mindset and the workplace and home are the foundation if we are mindful of this the rest of society suffers.
We all know that NON homogeneous teams make high performing teams and it’s widely recognised that when teams are made up of the same types of race/background/sex/gender you’re never going to get a fully wide thought pattern from your team. Much like the picture of Donald Trump signing anti abortion legislation below with a team of people who look very much like him….this picture caused a media storm from people everywhere who recognised that nothing says ‘you don’t matter’ than a bunch of people signing a bill waiving a personal right to bodily autonomy without any of the decision makers reflecting them or their views. This led to a backlash in 2018 featuring protests, angry women’s’ rallies, marches and what looked like a very instant and reactional response that came across as an ‘all men are to blame’ approach.
The reality is, women have been underrepresented like this for years, and this year, something special happened – women collectively found their voice. There’s a way to go yet, but if we can educate others’ on feminism – the history, people’s stories, why they feel this angry and marginalised, then we can provide a platform to listen to each individual’s narrative. Thus creating a more inclusive environment for all – men included!!!
