You ‘only got that job because you’re a woman’. Here’s what else you get being female

The last few months I’ve heard a common story from women in organisations where there’s been a concerted push to improve gender balance.

From the Defence Force to banking the backlash is growing as the reality sinks in about these measures, such as targets for women in management, or in some cases special programs or opportunities for women.

A range of women I’ve spoken to have copped the classic “you only got that job/promotion/training because you’re a woman” routine. Or “the only way to get anywhere these days is to wear a skirt”, and “women are taking jobs from men”. And on it goes.

No matter that the evidence shows there are barely any women making it to the top of most organisations, they are patently absent from power roles more broadly, and the women’s workforce participation rate in Australia lags many OECD countries.

The wonderful paradox of this kind of lament is that it maintains the steps to address unfairness are unfair. Depends where you sit in the debate, I guess.

It’s tempting to respond to these complaints by pointing out that for centuries you only got a job because you were a man and maybe it’s time to shake it up.

But it did get me thinking about a few of the other special conditions you only get from being a woman:

1.      A significantly slimmer pay packet. Yes, that old gender pay gap of 18.2% hasn’t gone away and in fact widened this year to about the same level as twenty years ago. Remember, this is not only a result of part-time work or maternity leave, although both factors depress women’s pay further. A large chunk of the pay gap arises from bias around women’s abilities and the value of their work. It emerges a year after graduates join the workforce and widens the further up the ladder you go – women in C suite jobs earn an average 20% less than their male peers.
2.      The bulk of the caring and housework. Sure this is changing, but slowly. Women in Australia continue to do about two-thirds of this unpaid labour with all its implications for paid jobs, and career progression. And telling women they ‘choose’ to do the unpaid and unvalued work is a cop out because we generally don’t get asked, and are simply expected to wear the caring mantle and risk being labelled bad mothers if we don’t. Dads, on the other hand, tend to be praised for any efforts in this area.
3.      Fewer jobs/sectors to choose from. There are technically no legal barriers to women taking on most jobs in Australia but the reality shows women’s employment is still remarkably concentrated in a handful of sectors – community services, education, nursing to name a few. Women employees are rare in technical roles in IT, mining and resources and of course they are hard to find in mid to senior ranks across the board, where the numbers dwindle alarmingly. The 3 per cent women CEOs of the ASX200 could hardly be called a major threat to male career paths.
4.      Careers that have to be forged before child bearing. There’s some exceptions to this rule but not many. Women often find their progression comes to a screaming halt or goes into reverse with motherhood, although this rarely applies to fathers who can even experience the opposite. The pressure to cram in any career moves before kids has contributed to many women delaying childbearing, sometimes with sad outcomes.
5.      A bad reputation or barrage of abuse for speaking out. There are so many special terms for women who raise their heads above the parapet, whether in their organisation or on the public stage, from shrill to ball breaker to femi-nazi. There’s a well-recognised tightrope that women have to walk between likeability, competence and assertiveness which is all about penalties for breaking female stereotypes and so rarely applies to men.  
6.      A continuing obligation to justify your right to a job. So fundamental but corrosive, this pressure to go on proving you are a legitimate member of the workforce is the result of numerous insidious factors. It stems from assumptions about the quality and value of working styles, and the right ‘fit’ for leadership (and higher pay). And it is the product of the informal but tenacious notion that a woman’s place is really in the home and not as a breadwinner or around the decision-making table.

So the next time all that unfair treatment women are getting in the workforce comes up for discussion, feel free to add a few extras to the list.