Why Diversity Issues Are Hard
Last week Elizabeth Engel put up a very short post about a new TED conference focused on women, expressing her displeasure with "ghettoizing" women by creating a separate conference. The post then became one of the most "comment-worthy" in the association space for a few days. Check out all the comments, because that's where the interesting dialogue is.
There were two interesting themes for me in the conversation.
First, there were many women who expressed some sort of offense to either the idea of a separate woman-focused conference or, more specifically, the way the organizers defended their decision once it was criticized. After those posts, there were a few men who basically said, "Yeah but you shouldn't have been offended because the TEDWomen conference was intended to be supportive and empowering for women."
Here's a tip. When someone says they are offended, it RARELY, if ever, helps to tell them that they shouldn't be feeling what they are feeling. When someone is offended, the first thing you should talk about is them, not you. Find out more why they feel offended. If you had a part in it, then apologize for offending them, even if you completely didn't mean to offend them. Still apologize for the IMPACT you had. Once that person feels like they've been heard and their experience has been acknowledged, then they will probably be ready to hear some more about your good intentions.
Second, there was a little back and forth about whether women were "second class citizens" in the US, and a man pushed back suggesting we ask Hilary Clinton and Carly Fiorina and other women who have made it to the top of their field if they felt the same way.
I don't know what Carly and Hilary think, but let's switch things up hypothetically. If I (a man) were a US senator, and men were 51% of the population, and I looked around at my 99 senate colleagues and saw only TWELVE other male faces, I might be thinking about my gender's status, despite my one individual success story. Same is true if I were a Fortune 500 CEO and at a CEO-only networking event, struggling to find the other men in the room in case I wanted to ask them about gender equity issues, but finding it hard given there would be 487 women milling about and only 13 men. These statistics (along with similarly horrific pay disparity numbers) have been visible for decades, but it seems very difficult for men to actually let them sink in. We instead tend to see small bits of positive data (a few success stories) and conclude that things are better.
But that's what makes diversity such a tough nut to crack. It's not only the fact that it is system-wide and very complex (thus a hard problem to solve no matter what), it also has built in protection mechanisms. Men are benefiting from privileges in a sexist system, but are at the same time socialized in ways that make it extremely difficult for them to be aware of those privileges. We just don't see it or feel it. We feel like we are being treated equally, because that's the way we think it should be. That's what we want. Unfortunately, that is precisely what makes it difficult for us to start dismantling the system of inequality.
The same is true, by the way, along other dimensions of inequality in our society. It's hard for white people to understand how much privilege we have. It's hard for heterosexuals to understand what the GLBT community is really going through. The systems that perpetuate the inequality survive precisely because they have managed to convince the people with the upper hand…that the privilege doesn't exist.
9 Comments
Elizabeth Engel
Awesome post, JNott. I think the best we can do to combat this is educate ourselves and be open to truly hearing the thoughts and experiences of those who don’t enjoy the privileges we enjoy.
Kristi Donovan
Jamie – I had read Elizabeth’s posts last week, and every time I started to write, I never felt like I could get it right. I think you are right on target.
For those who are interested in this topic, Patti Digh wrote an excellent article years ago for ASAE’s magazine. In it, there were two lists articulating privileges that majority populations often don’t recognize they have. One deals with white privilege and is here: http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/whitepaperdetail.cfm?ItemNumber=12163. The other dealt with sexuality, I think, and was excellent as well. I often used them when trying to explain challenges to others.
We are socialized to believe what we want and need to believe about ourselves. It is a very difficult cycle to break, and I still have to consciously challenge myself to reconsider my beliefs when I fall into that trap.
One of the interesting things I observed in the comments to the post were how many of the female commenters said they wanted to be treated as equals and not seen through the lens of gender. I almost feel as if this swings the pendulum in completely the opposite direction. I think it is naive to think that that is possible. I fall somewhere in the middle. I just want folks to see the value that diversity brings to the table. Race, sexuality, gender, ability, religion, culture, etc – differences in each bring an entirely new set of perspectives that can positively influence whatever it is we are trying to accomplish.
Thanks for this post.
Shannon Otto
Great post in response to the discussion. You articulated my feelings about Carly and Hillary much better than I did in my original comment!
I really appreciate you pointing out that if someone says they’re offended, no one has the right to tell them they shouldn’t feel that way. I would never presume to understand how a person in the ethnic minority feels or tell them not to be offended, and I would hope others would extend me – and other women – the same courtesy.
The discussion about diversity is an interesting one, and one I think will never go away. I’m personally not a huge fan of diversity just for diversity’s sake, but I appreciate the immense value that a variety of opinions can bring to a group. I think everyone – nonprofits, corporations and individuals – should take care to never discount the value of anyone’s opinion, no matter which ethnic group, sex or sexual orientation they affiliate with.
Scott Briscoe
Here’s my problem, Jamie. I see the numbers, that’s easy. I believe other numbers that I hear but do not see, pay disparity, for example. That also is easy for me.
I do not see the privilege. I see the results of it (the numbers), but I don’t see it happen, and, for the most part, I don’t believe most people see it when it happens. As a result, it’s terribly hard to take action to do anything about it, other than to call awareness to the numbers.
Some studies that I think apply to these thoughts have been mentioned in several of the laymen’s social psychology stuff, the last time I remember reading about them is in Shankar Vedantam’s The Hidden Brain. The studies take a look at stereotypes, and just how in-grained they are in people, though most of the people taking the tests think there is not any hint of prejudice in themselves. It’s incredibly eye-opening to read about, and disheartening.
The only solution I see is that time will diminish the negative affects. When you just look at the examples of the U.S. Senate and Fortune 500 CEOs that you talked about in the post, my guess is that if you compared today’s numbers to a generation ago, there would be significant improvement, and I expect the same a generation from now. Is this unacceptably slow? I think so, but the alternative that is going to correct this injustice quickly is not apparent to me — is it apparent to anybody else?
What Vedantam seems to argue in The Hidden Brain is that the repetition of seeing, for example, 13 women senators, reinforces the notion that women every bit as effective at being senators as men. Over time, this reinforcement desensitizes our stereotypes and prejudices. Enter TEDWomen. I have no knowledge of what may or may not have been behind the idea. I could see something like this though: organizers looking around and just not seeing enough women being seen as the leaders in the TED community. As a result, they try to establish something that thrusts women into leadership roles and to help them discover the women leaders, so that they can go back to TED and increase the presence of women leaders, something they see as critical to the future of TED.
It’s like when I was editor of Associations Now and APICS–The Performance Advantage and even School Business Affairs before that. When I would get artwork for illustrative purposes of a feature, it was invariably a white man. It’s great, we’d constantly have to say to the artists we used, but we need the person to be something other than a white man. I guess the point is, seeing diversity matters. It matters a whole lot.
A final thing: I’d like to push back on Shannon’s comment. You write that you’re not a fan of diversity for diversity’s sake, but you appreciate the value that a variety of opinions can bring to a group.
What I read in that is that you define diversity only by surface things: gender, color, orientation, accent, etc. Change “opinions” to “opinions and perspectives” and I think the second part of your statement is the perfect definition for diversity — a divergence in perspective and opinion. If you define diversity as such, then it becomes ok to champion diversity for diversity’s sake — something I’d love for everyone with any power to do and act on.
Shannon Otto
Scott, I think you perfectly clarified that statement. “Opinions and perspectives” is much clearer and more accurate to what I meant. When I said “diversity for diversity’s sake,” what I meant was, for example, colleges and universities admitting less-qualified minority students over white students, just to achieve a certain percentage of ethnic diversity. (And please take that as just a broad example to illustrate my prior point. I’m not trying to open up another can of worms here.)
Maddie Grant
Per Kristi’s comment, I was one of those who said I wanted to not be seen through the “lens of gender” – which is true – and I was just saying to Jamie the other day that I realized that was probably never going to happen and was probably naive. I was also speaking from the personal point of view of someone who has been “used” to show diversity (of my almost all-white high school) in a place where there was really none to speak of and I’m still bitter about that. But to me the answer lies in something similar to what Scott is saying when he refers to the “reinforcement” and repetition of seeing diversity in action.
When ASAE had a general session with a panel on diversity a couple of years ago and yet that same morning I’d seen the top board members addressing us at the volunteer breakfast and they were all old white men, it made me feel pretty annoyed and think they were just paying lip service to it. When TED has good intentions but it continues to marginalize and show the “otherness” of women, that does the same thing.
You really value diversity? Show me a board of directors with diverse people (ages, genders, races, abilities) on it. Stop talking about it and live it.
Jurgen Appelo
Thanks Jamie, great post!
I wrote my own take on diversity just 2 weeks ago. Maybe you like it:
It’s About Being Competent, Not About Being ___
http://www.noop.nl/2010/07/its-about-being-competent-not-about-being-___.html
Jamie
Thanks for all the great comments everyone! Just one quick response to Scott here. The only solution you see is more time?! To answer the question you ask a few sentences later, YES, waiting several generations is “unacceptably slow” for us to have progressed all the way to 13 out of 100 senators. I agree that with time it will change. I’m just not okay with that. With time, slavery probably would have gone away. With time, women probably would have been given the right to vote by now. With time the Jim Crow laws would have been repealed. And as long as those of us with the privilege can feel that it’s okay for time to be the answer, then that’s what will happen. But I think if more of us could be really outraged by the injustice and oppression, change will come faster. We will find ways.
Shelly Alcorn, CAE
Jamie – thank you so much for this thoughtful post. I truly appreciated your perspective and found the comments that followed enlightening on several levels.
Shelly