Article originally published in August 2017
Being chosen for a job because of your gender instead of your skills. Believing you have the power to change things, but in reality, you don’t. Failing to turn things around because the task is impossible and being told it’s because you’re a woman! These are just a few examples of what we call tokenism. Some companies have resorted to tokenism to counter bad PR. Here’s how.
Uber has been looking for a new CEO following the resignation of Travis Kalanick, largely linked to sexual harassment scandals within the company. Several women were approached for the position:
– Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO),
– Meg Whitman (CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise),
– Susan Wojcicki (CEO of YouTube),
– Mary Barra (General Manager, General Motors),
– Carolyn McCall (CEO of EasyJet)
No women accepted the offer.
Why didn’t any woman want to take up this challenge? I don’t think anyone likes to be anyone’s stash. Tokenism is the act of taking a person representing diversity and placing them on a board of directors (BOD), at the front desk of an organization or in a senior management position to look good. In short, we put her in the front row, because she represents the argument: “For our company, diversity is important. The proof is that we have chosen such and such a person to join our Board of Directors.” In such cases, on closer inspection, the other members of the Board are usually white men and/or the person in question has no decision-making power.
Tokenism is the term used when companies seek solutions to accusations of lack of diversity. It’s a quick fix that puts out fires, but it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. It’s a smokescreen.
What’s wrong with tokenism?
1. Taking one member of a community and making him/her the standard-bearer for all the others is reductive for the “token”. We diminish his or her achievements and experience by not having chosen him or her for them.
2. Taking on a member of a minority, with no power or a power limited to that of the other members of the group, gives him/her an illusion of importance.
3. Imposing the burden on an individual to represent all the other members of his/her group is a very heavy responsibility, which he/she has not necessarily chosen.
4. There is a phenomenon known as the “glass cliff”, in which women are more often called upon to play a leadership role in times of crisis, and are therefore subject to more criticism if companies don’t perform well.
Who wants to be the “stooge” of a company with profound organizational and cultural problems?
Some women accept this role, probably seeing it as a challenge to be taken up, and burn their wings in the process, like Marissa Mayer at Yahoo.
In an interview with the Financial Times when she announced her resignation, she said: “I tried to ignore the fact that I’m a woman in a male-dominated environment. I believe technology is a gender-neutral place, but I think there have been biased reports because of her gender. We see all these things that weigh on women leaders, like these articles that talk about how they look, when Hillary Clinton wears new pants, for example. I think all women are aware of this, but I had hoped that in 2015 and 2016 the situation would be different. It’s a shame.” [free translation]
Based on the principle that once we know about a phenomenon, it’s easier for us to identify it and therefore prevent it, it’s up to all of us to open our eyes.
And so as not to be tokenistic myself, I’d like to say that I don’t speak for all women in tech. Many women and men agree with me, and many women and men disagree with me.
Photo by Markus Spiske via Unsplash
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