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Women in the workplace and the unfinished fight for equality

Caitlin Yilek

06/17/2021

Women have long battled barriers in the workforce as they fought for equality with their male colleagues. Those battles continue as women demand equal pay and representation at the highest levels.

"The Me Too movement and the Time's Up movement have really been at the forefront of uncovering and exposing the biases and inequalities that women have experienced," said Dr. Tsedale Melaku, a sociologist and author.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed women back into traditional gender roles, Melaku said. The COVID-19 recession was the first where more women lost jobs than men.

"2020 in particular has seen women being pushed back into these gender roles and narratives around their home life," Melaku said. "Being relegated back into the default caregiver status, nurturing status also kind of reinforces those old traditional stereotypes that women were already fighting against in order to break into the public sphere, in order to break into access to being in organizations and in these leadership roles."

Tina Tchen, the president and CEO of Time's Up Now, said, "In a single year, we wiped out three to four decades worth of progress on women coming into the workforce and being able to make a living for themselves and their families and being able to realize a career and a dream."

CBS News spoke with women about the difficulties they've faced advancing their careers. 

Cate Luzio, CEO: "I realized that woman-ness was at a disadvantage for me"

"Women have a different road ahead of them, no matter how good they are. It's just societal norms and human nature," said Cate Luzio, the founder and CEO of Luminary, a membership-based growth and career accelerator focused on helping women advance their careers. 

Before starting her own company in 2018, Luzio held executive positions at multinational banks, including HSBC and J.P. Morgan. As she progressed in her career, she said she felt that being a woman put her at a disadvantage. 

"The first half of my career, it was just about doing well and doing better and being super competitive with my peers, which were mainly men, because I wanted to have that leg up. I wanted to be better and I wanted to be better because I wanted to aspire to be a leader," she said. "I aspired to be a manager as I sort of hit that second half of my career. That's when I realized that woman-ness was at a disadvantage for me."

Luzio also suggested that there was a double standard for how women are perceived in the workplace versus their male colleagues. She was labeled "emotional," "aggressive," "harsh" and "cold," which she said may have contributed to her being overlooked for promotions. 

"I never, as a manager, gave any of that type of feedback to men. So why was I getting that? I think there were multiple times where I felt like others were being promoted when I wasn't, mainly because of those labels. And I just wouldn't stand for it. I was always the dissenter. Like, how could you say that to me? Like, what do you mean? Don't just give me a label, explain what that means. And, a lot of times that bit me in the behind," she said. 

For every 100 men promoted to a managerial position in 2019, 85 women were promoted, according to a study from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org. In 2020, women held 38% of manager-level positions while men held 62%. 

"We're raising our hands in our companies and saying, 'Give me more responsibility. Help me move up. Teach me.' And the reality is for most women, the excuse they get when they sit in that room with their boss is, 'You're just not ready yet. You don't have all of these...' OK. So teach me," she said.

Read more

    Company Culture
    Gender Equity/Diversity
    Racial Equity/Diversity
    Inclusion

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