And yet, I am more optimistic today than ever before. I believe that we – men and women, working together – have an unprecedented opportunity to create a new, more successful, quite different approach, one that will not just create more possibilities for girls, but more choices for boys, too – a bolder approach to gender equality that’s not aimed merely at training a few women in working practices that have outlived their usefulness. Those women (and even fewer ethnic minority, gay or disabled people) who have made it to the top today are the exceptions, the ones who have mostly played by the rules of the existing game. We now have the chance to reinvent the game – not at the expense of men, but by creating new ways of working and living that fit the world of today and tomorrow, not the past. I have spent years listening and engaging with both women and men who tell me very similar things about the pressures they feel to comply with ‘norms’ that seem habitual rather than right for anyone, or relevant in a digital age.
It’s time to think bigger, to act more boldly and, with men, devise new ways of working, living and bringing up families together, as equals. But to make the most of this opportunity we need to stop leaning in to old-fashioned business practices, cultures, hierarchies and a division of roles that evolved long before technology, or before many girls had a great education.
Leaning in to the status quo is perpetuating what holds us back. Instead, we need to shape the world we want to see.
You may be dubious. How can we change a system that has been stacked up against women for so long? This book provides some practical suggestions for you now; a great example from the past lies in the true story of how the Women’s Tennis Association came about (you may have seen the movie The Battle of the Sexes). In 1970, nine courageous women led by Billie Jean King refused to ‘lean in’ to the US Tennis Association, having discovered that the winner of the US Open’s men’s tournament would receive twelve times the woman champion’s prize money. On the face of it, the men running the USTA had all the power, the financing and the media on their side.
But the women would not accept what was clearly an outrageous situation (and more extreme than we tend to encounter today, thanks in part to their trail-blazing). They established their own tour, signing on for just one dollar each. As Billie Jean put it, ‘We weren’t sure about our destiny but we knew it was in our hands for the first time.’ That destiny turned out to be just great. The new women’s tour soon attracted a sponsor and became the foundation stone of the Women’s Tennis Association, which today stages over fifty annual events, including four grand slam tournaments. In 2017, the men’s and women’s US Open champions both received US$3.7 million in prize money.
This redesigning-the-process approach is what we need today. But most gender equality efforts are far less ambitious. Too often, they are aimed at teaching women (and other ‘diverse talent’) how to play the existing system better. As a result, women are at best playing catch-up, while often feeling dissatisfied and questioning their choices. More of us are becoming lawyers, accountants and doctors, but in the meantime men are pushing onwards, upwards and outwards, taking more entrepreneurial, higher-risk routes to success. Start-ups run by women, for example, currently account for only 2% of US venture capital firms’ investments. Following in men’s footsteps, emulating the boys but trailing a few years behind them, is not the answer. As women, we have our own strengths to offer and today we have a better opportunity to demonstrate that than ever before.
What makes me so confident? – and so out of sync with many commentators, who routinely despair at everything from President Trump to gender pay gaps and the litany of revelations about sexual harassment? What about #MeToo, #TimesUp and, in the UK, the sordid revelations of sexual harassment at the notorious Presidents Club dinner? Those unsavoury behaviours had been going on for years; what’s different now is that they are being exposed and addressed. Look at what happened in the aftermath of the revelations about long-running sexual harassment in Hollywood, catalysed by the Harvey Weinstein allegations. We can understand why those who suffered did not speak up at the time; they felt alone, the ‘system’ was omnipotent – but today’s social media enabled them to join forces and change the way this issue will be seen from now onwards. Leaning in to a corrupt system may have seemed the ‘only’ option – now, together, we can transform that system.
The new opportunity I see arises from the very state of flux we find ourselves in. Today’s upheavals are unsettling and may even look like setbacks, but they also open the door to a whole new level of progress. That’s not just wishful thinking. My experiences have shown me that people become receptive to new ideas at moments of dislocation in a way that’s very unlikely in stable times. That’s a rational reaction: when the path is smooth, there is little incentive to consider a different route, but where there is turbulence, we need to explore new concepts that might show us a way through.
Today’s economic, political and societal challenges are certainly immense, driven largely by technology, which is rapidly undermining traditional power structures, changing the nature of leadership, the future of employment, and threatening our security. There is no playbook to consult. Leaders see the need for new thinking, but are grappling with what that looks like.
This book explains how gender balance is an important part of the solution, not – as so many see it – another problem to solve. If we can connect the two, the prize is very great, for each of us as individuals, for equality and for our ability to solve increasingly complex problems. The stark reality is that if we are going to resolve the big disconnects, we need to re-engineer our collective thinking, and that means involving more women. Feminine traits – empathy, collaborative behaviour, the ability to connect emotionally with those we are seeking to influence – can help us find answers.
Of course, men can have those feminine attributes too; what is important is to move on from the macho command-and-control regime that we have become used to for centuries. People will not be told what to do by leaders who don’t connect with them and they don’t trust.
So amidst the current upheavals, we have the chance to develop a new, shared understanding of what’s needed to be successful, in our family lives as well as our careers; what’s needed for men as well as women to have more freedom in how they live and for these positive changes to affect many people. Happily, in my experience many men in many countries around the world now want gender equality too – and that’s key to consigning the whole topic to the history books. Short of a revolution, people on the outside need those on the inside to help them progress. ‘He for she’ (and ‘she for he’) is the right approach.
I have seen change happen once many people start to share the desire to reach a certain outcome, and then work together towards it. A multitude of individuals taking small steps together in the same direction creates a powerful momentum.
So what happens next is very much up to all of us – and that includes you. You don’t need to choose between focusing on your own career and creating the conditions for broader progress; increasingly, those goals are linked. We can write our own story, individually and collectively. This book will show you how to make the most of today’s new opportunities, whether you are still at school, starting out in your working life, looking to progress at mid-career or already at a senior level, whether you are a daughter, son, parent, mentor, mentee, teacher, pupil, CEO or apprentice. First, you need an open mind; much of the current thinking around diversity is – ironically – encouraging the exact opposite. The diversity agenda has been hijacked by virtue signallers, with universities leading the way in shutting down freedom of expression in the name of ‘inclusion’ (sic). A diverse society needs diverse thinking, especially around how we create real inclusion, yet it has become heretical to question ineffective approaches. If we’re going to make real progress, we first need a licence to challenge what has clearly not been working.
I’m certainly not complacent. In my own lifetime I have already seen many stops and starts in the journey towards gender equality and of course there were very many years of effort long before, including the sacrifices made by women who had to fight hard for the right to vote a century ago. Even since I started writing this book a number of critical developments have occurred – and will continue to occur – because great change involves challenging episodes, lurches forward,