Supporting women in business: more important than ever

Eighty-six years ago, the US Fair Labor Standards Act set a single minimum wage regardless of gender.

Sixty years ago, The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, origin, national origin, or sex.

Nineteen years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that you cannot legally punish someone for complaining about sexual harassment in the workplace.

Sixteen years ago, California became the first state to require that companies include women in their boards of directors.

Yet today, women around the US are watching as some of the hard-won steps toward equality of these past decades are rolled back or thrown into jeopardy. Our futures feel uncertain. And there’s a metric ton of anxiety weighing down our collective souls (with Handmaid’s Tale memes flying and Google searches for “how to move abroad” on the upswing).

We’re a women-owned business, so you know we give a damn. But we’re also not quick to board the doom train. So we’re not here to add to the panic, but to remind us all of something simple and important:

Together, we are powerful.

It is the hard work and collective action of those who came before us that gave us non-discrimination laws, that changed societal perspectives, that gave us a world where 61% of US men support affirmative action for women and 69% of men say they are actively championing women in their workplace.

And it is our hard work and collective action that will make tomorrow what it is for ourselves and the generations to come (which was true before the election just as much as it is now).

So, what can we as individuals do in a deeply uncertain political climate?

We’re experts in marketing and business, so we’ll stay in that lane (if you want suggestions for political action, finding local mutual aid and political organizations is a good start!). On the business side, here are some things we’d love to see more of from every person who cares about women:

1. Support women-owned businesses.

We aren’t saying this just for the sake of equity. We’re also saying it because women-owned businesses get shit done. In fact, in the tech industry, women-owned businesses report 35% higher ROI. They outperform men’s businesses by 63%.

Should we support women for the sake of equity? Absolutely. But should we also recognize that when we support women’s businesses, that has a positive ripple effect into our economies and communities? Yes, we absolutely should.

Not to mention that women-owned businesses have better gender-equity not just at the top but all the way down. Reports as far back as 2014 found that women-owned businesses were made up (on average) of about 44% women employees (compared to 37% in male-owned businesses).

2. Pay attention to the trends.

Middle management has a gender problem—and it’s a fixable one, but not if we ignore it! Pay attention to what’s happening on a macro level for women in the workplace, read the research, and share those findings widely. If we don’t know about problems, we can’t solve them. If we don’t alert leadership to issues, they can’t address them.

3. Recommend women.

Research tells us that when it comes to referrals on the job, people tend to recommend other people who are demographically similar to them.

In other words: if you’re white, you’re more likely to recommend a white person. If you’re a man, you’re more likely to recommend a man. This is a totally unconscious thing (we’re not calling anyone out)—and it’s a preventable one.

If you’re a man who wants to uplift women, keep track of the women in your circle who are looking for jobs. Make a list of women freelancers you trust. And recommend them when the opportunity arises. It’s a pretty simple mission that can make a real difference to gender equity in the workspace (especially if you work in a male-dominated company or field).

Same thing if you are a white person and are committed to anti-racist action. Same thing if you are abled and want to uplift the disabled community (a group statistically drastically underemployed).

4. Promote women.

Companies with women in leadership perform better in the marketplace, so this shouldn’t be a hard sell. But the other thing women in leadership do (in general) is make workplaces safer for other women.

In a political climate where legal protections for equal pay, equal rights, and workplace safety (from harassment and assault) are under threat, it’s more important than ever to have women in leadership in individual businesses. Women in leadership will be more likely to put in place (and take seriously) HR policies that promote equity and leave less room for harassment.

While not every woman is a person who will champion other women in the workplace, business trends show us (as in the stats above about women-owned businesses having more equitable hiring processes) that overall, having women in leadership promotes equity.

5. Support women day-to-day.

Losing rights and protections is scary and takes an emotional toll. So it’s more important than ever that we support and uplift women on a daily basis. I mean both in their career trajectories and their humanity.

The day after the US election, I saw a woman treating herself to a fancy breakfast in a nice café—and visibly (though quietly) crying. At least two different people in that café offered to pay for her breakfast (the café owner having the final say and not allowing anyone to pay for it, including the woman).

Now, maybe she wasn’t crying about the election. Maybe she was. Either way, multiple people in that café saw her and wanted to let her know that whatever she was going through, she was not alone.

And that’s really what every piece of advice above is about. Supporting women because it’s the smart thing to do (with women-owned businesses generally winning big economically and for employees). Supporting women because it’s the right thing to do in a world where what equity we do have is hard-won and embarrassingly recent. And supporting women because we’re all in this together.

An equitable world is a better world for everyone. And the work we do to push back against the biases and inequities built into old systems helps us all and makes us more connected.

So go forth: show up for a woman in your life. Show up for women-owned businesses. Show up for your women colleagues. And in doing so, show up for yourself. And if there’s a way we can show up for you, tell us.