EP 6 - Eden King

Welcome to another episode of the examined athlete. I'm Clay Reichenbach. Before we get started today, I just want to remind you to please subscribe to our podcast on Apple or Spotify. Please follow us on social media on Instagram or Twitter at @examinedathlete. We certainly appreciate all your support. We certainly appreciate any encouragement that you give on those platforms. And now on to our next guest. Today, my guest is Dr. Eden King. Dr. King is a professor of organizational and industrial psychology at Rice University, where her research focuses on diversity and inclusion in organizations. I really, really enjoyed this conversation with Eden. I think it's an important conversation. I found it thought provoking. I found it educational. And the topics were eye opening for a father of two young girls like myself. And if nothing else, I hope this conversation will start some other conversations that would not have taken place otherwise. Eden and I cover strategies to raise powerful self-actualized young girls. We discuss some of the challenges that women face in the workplace. We explore the importance of being challenged, belonging, acknowledgement from our peers and our leadership. And we cover the topic that I'm extremely passionate about, which is dads leaning into their families. Eden, I thank you for your perspective. I thank you for your expertise. But more than anything else, I thank you for your patience. I thank you for your kindness. I am grateful you were willing to sit down with someone with no expertise in your space and have a thoughtful nuanced conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, the incredibly powerful, the incredibly brilliant Dr. Eden King. All right, we're live. Hi Eden. Hello. So I've been looking really forward to this conversation. For those of you listening, Eden and I scheduled this for last week, I've been a little under the weather. You can probably still hear that it I'm a little under the weather. But I'm looking forward to learning. I've got a lot of questions for you and I thank you so much for being here. Why don't we start by describing what you do, what's your current post, what's your expertise, what are you currently focusing on? However you want to describe it, what do you do? Hi, I'm a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Rice University. And in that role, I get to teach about, learn about research about people and organizations and my particular area of expertise is diversity and inclusion in organizations. Okay, and I'd like to try to start by figuring out how a psychologist is made a bit. What were you into growing up? Oh gosh, what was I into? I love to read. My mom had to like make me put down books as a kid because I would not do anything else other than read. I always loved peers. I was always very pure-oriented. I always wanted to hang out with my friends. And then I started playing sports in middle school and that became a passion for middle and high school and also did both musical theater and that kind of stuff. Were you aware that you wanted to be a scientist of some sort? No, I never would have identified as being a scientist or as wanting to be a scientist. When I was really little I wanted to be the first female president and then later on I thought I wanted to be a lawyer maybe and then a high school English teacher. And then in college I really developed a love for psychology and research in particular. Did you have any unusual influences, heroes? Outside of your immediate family? Yeah, so a professor in the psychology department at Rice where I also went to undergrad Mickey Hebel is someone who had a huge influence on my life. She's the one who said you know you might really like this research thing. That's actually the second time she's come up on this podcast. So she's obviously doing the right things. You mentioned wanting to be the first female president. In your TED talk you reference the recognition that all presidents were men at a very young age. What do you think this realization did for young Eden and then beyond that what do you think it does for most young girls or a recognition of something similar? Yeah, I think that was part of recognizing that there hadn't been a female president was part of me what made me want to do it but also recognizing that things weren't quite right in the world and that that wasn't okay with me. And I remember around the same time in my life as I recognized that I also started seeing some other injustices or unfairnesses. I played on a co-ed soccer team. I must have been six years old, seven years old with my cousin also a little girl. And we noticed that all the girls on the team only played half of the game because that was what was required and all the boys on the team got to play more. And I remember my uncle took us out for ice cream after one of the games because he was so mad at that injustice. And you know we were six or seven there wasn't a huge difference in our skill or ability or anything. It just felt unfair. And so I guess that was the time in my life when I started recognizing that there are things that aren't quite fair and that maybe there was something I could do about it. That sounds unique to me to be six, seven years old and realize that all the presidents being men is maybe not right. I would say that's that you apart quite a bit. I'm embarrassed a bit to admit this but the importance of seeing people in positions of influence that look like you. That be I became aware of that late in life. And it's been highlighted to me by my oldest daughter who's five. She's obsessed with seeing women in powerful positions. It could be her doctor has to be a girl. Her characters and movies have to be a girl. The singers on the radio while we're in the car have to be a girl. And this is clearly anecdotal but it occurred to me that if she doesn't see Mulan kicking ass on screen she may not think girls can kick ass. Does the science point that way? Can that affect the aspirations of young people? Yeah for sure. So I mean even there's a lot of problems with Freud but even Freud recognized early on that children tend to identify with their same gender role models. Freud talked about it in very specific and I would say odd ways but now developmental psychologists have identified a variety of areas in which having a role model who's the same gender as you makes a huge difference. Yes very much the science supports that general tendency for us to look for people who look like us and gender is a defining component of our lives from a very very early age and so it makes sense that your daughter like my daughters are looking for those role models. Before we get to your research I'm gonna be selfish for a bit. I am a father of two girls. You're the mother of two girls. It's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's the thing I'm best at in life and I'm determined to raise powerful self-actualized young girls and I want them to be able to chase whatever dreams they want to chase whether that be a mother or president of the United States and I know this is not your expertise but it I believe what you do for a living gives you some pretty good intuition about parenting strategies so I'm gonna talk parenting strategies. What are the core strategies that you and your husband use to ensure that your girls are self-assured young women? So when I think about parenting and what my partner husband and I have tried to do with our daughters I think about several things that have been both unconscious and conscious so one of the things is the words that we used to describe them and these words that are not just about their appearance. Another thing is around the way that we talk to them about their control of their own body so we don't make them or ask them to hug anyone without their consent. We invite them to be entirely responsible for their own body and I think that's really important to me. We've also really encouraged them to see all of the ways that they can use and move and like feel strong in their bodies in a really positive way so we try to run them around and get them to try all kinds of new things, climbing and biking and swimming and you know just everything about being a person and using their bodies well and we try to give them opportunities to learn about gender and so we actually talk about gender a lot directly with both of my girls both 10 and five in different ways so one of the things that we've had an opportunity to do is talk about what it means to be male, what it means to be female, what it means to be transgender and how people's perceptions of gender are not always how they feel and so we have complicated this idea of gender for them which I think is uncomfortable for some people and for some kids probably but I've been amazed by how quickly they understand that gender is not a matter of one thing or another. It's a lot of things and it's kind of whatever they want it to be for themselves. And I've really enjoyed seeing those conversations change over time as my children get older. My younger child, my younger daughter, she's five and she still talks about what boys like and what girls like and then I say, "Well, do you know any boys who don't like that or do you know any girls who don't like that?" And I say, "Oh, okay, cool. What do you think about that?" So asking questions rather than giving information has been really fun. One of the strategies that I use is I purposely expose my girls to distinctly brilliant, brave, powerful characters and more than that. I try not to default to appearance every time I give them a compliment and sometimes I stop myself mid-sentence, meaning instead of saying you're beautiful all the time which I think they're beautiful. I try to default 75-80% of the time to brave, bold, creative. Is this silly? Am I overthinking this? If you're overthinking it then so am I. I do the exact same thing and I've done it since they were born. Anytime I tell them that they're beautiful or pretty, I also tell them that they are smart and tough and hardworking and brave and I think beautiful, smart, tough, strong and brilliant are some of the words that I most commonly use to describe my daughters. You know, some people say you don't need to describe them. You know, they can figure it out for themselves, but as a parent I think practically we want to communicate all the wonderful things we see about our kids and and so yeah I try to make it not just about their appearance especially if I start that way inadvertently. Well I'm glad to hear an expert say that I'm not wrong there because that's one of my strategies among others so I thought I'd throw that out. Well one of the things that scientists have found is that as soon as a baby is born those adjectives, literally the data born, those adjectives are more likely to be used with boy babies and with girl babies in terms of strong tough and so people ask about where to stunder cumphum is, it biology is it socialization, it's impossible to tease those things apart because it happens from the moment they're born in fact before they're born we start talking about our infants in utero about their qualities and oh what a tough kick you know our strong kick and we're more likely to use those words when it's a boy and then when it's a girl and so that's what what has driven me certainly to be careful about the words I used to describe my girls. Sure sure absolutely well let's get into your research what I've done is picked out a number of topics from your research and we'll go through them one by one I'd like you to start by defining the terms I think that would be helpful and then add any color you deemed necessary to describe what you and your colleagues have found and then if we can get into some solutions that you know maybe are you know more complex that would be great too so I'm gonna start with a very tricky one what is benevolent sexism? So benevolent sexism is a form of sexism that is rooted in beliefs that women should be protected and cherished that women are you know our own mothers and the mothers of our children and that they are need in this sort of this protective paternalism that they are somehow less capable of a variety of tasks and thus in need of help so it's it's one of several forms of sexism and it's one that often isn't recognized as sexism. In many cases maybe even most cases you're describing someone who's being polite or someone who's being kind so it seems to me that it gets tricky is this something you get a lot of push back on or people that look at you with a confused face? Oh for sure it's something that I think about a lot when we are doing those studies because in some ways it's in the mind of the person who's enacting the behavior so am I being nice or chivalrous because I'm trying to be nice or is it because consciously or unconsciously I think this person I'm interacting with is not as capable as for male counterpart so it's my motivation as the actor it's also potentially in the mind of the person who's being treated in that way right so if I'm a woman and I think that somebody is asking me if I need help with something because I'm a woman I might not see it as kind I might see it as sexist and so teasing apart those motives and perceptions can be a really important part of this sort of puzzle of benevolence sexism and in our research we've tried to get at that a couple of different ways one of the ways is for example we did a study on pregnant women and we have found in several studies that pregnant women are more likely to elicit help than non-pregnant women or women who are earlier in their pregnancies and so what that looks like is someone trying to do tasks for you without you asking for their assistance or someone trying to protect you from unpleasant news without you asking them to do that someone just sort of treating you in an overly kind way and we didn't ask women did you perceive us to be sexist we asked them was this help actually helpful and what we found was that whether or not they perceived it to be helpful it actually made them feel less confident in their own abilities so every time somebody tried to help them without them actually asking for help it made them feel like they were less capable their self-efficacy actually was lower and so what that means to me is treating someone as if they're in need of help without them actually asking for or potentially meeting that help makes them feel less competent and if we treat women that way more than we treat men that way well then that's problematic from a gender equity perspective you mentioned pregnant women I think in maybe your TED Talk one of the examples you pointed out was a pregnant woman carrying a box and I must admit my tendency is going to be to try to help without box is your thought that I should ask if they need help is that the solution you ask first you don't demand that's exactly my thought like just ask this we've found something similar with regard to women in general where their supervisors would give their male counterparts more challenging developmental opportunities than the female counterparts and so as you know from the work you've done having challenge in the work that you do helps you get better right you have to be challenged to actually learn what you need to learn to develop the skills you need to develop and what we found was that supervisors particularly those who are high in benevolent sexism who tend to endorse that ideology are the ones who were giving those tasks to men rather than women and so the women were being denied these opportunities like taking on a new team project where there's conflict or taking on a task that involves traveling abroad it may be that those supervisors were saying oh well this woman you know she has a family she may not want to travel abroad or oh I don't want her to have to like deal with this problem so I'm gonna protect her from that well rather than making that assumption for women in general or for pregnant women in particular about a box I would advocate just ask let them decide yeah communicate have you found in the research where this behavior comes from is it culturally specific does it change among cultures or is there some evolution at play and I'm not one to believe that just because it's evolved it can't be changed but is there to make my point I guess it's it's clear that women's lives are disproportionately or valuable as we evolved does that have anything to do with it or am I over thinking that so the researchers who coined the term and who have studied this phenomenon in depth are Susan Fisk at Princeton and Peter Glick at Lawrence University and they have looked at some evolutionary components to stereotypes in general so it's possible certainly that that is part of where some of these belief systems came from and they've also looked cross culturally and they have found that across cultures people do endorse these ideologies this benevolent ideology as well as it's comparison which is called the hostile sexism which is a more traditional form of sexism what we usually think of when we think of sexism but interestingly across all cultures around the world their research has found that the more people think women should be protected and we're the more they endorse the novel and sexism they also tend to endorse hostile sexism so they also tend to think women are getting more than they deserve women are arguing for too much and so these ideas kind of go hand in hand in most cultures around the world so they're they're I'm sure there has been evolution over time I'm sure there are cultural differences but but these belief systems exist universally what does the research tell us that women want do women want to be cherished and protected are they are they feeling this benevolent sexism I think the research would suggest that it's very difficult to make any sort of assertions about what women as a monolithic group want there's so much variation within this group women much more variation within the group of women than there is variation between men and women that's something that I talk a lot about with my psychology at Dunderclasses. If you look at the distribution of basically anything, whether it's mental ability or math ability, the differences between men and women are much smaller than the differences within women or within men. Sure, sure. Well, you mentioned the importance of being challenged, which I actually added as a sub topic underneath the benevolent sexism banner. So your research has found that if you treat people like they're incompetent or you reduce the standards, you're doing a disservice to that individual that people need to be challenged to grow. Is that correct? Do I have that right? So the research on needing challenge to grow is broader than mine. It's separate from research on gender. It's more about development and change as a person. It applies to everyone. You need to be challenged to learn the skills that are needed for that next race or for that next promotion. Whatever it is that you need to have that challenge to acquire that new ability or skill. Sure. Sure. Well, let's jump on to the next topic. Gender judo. Explain to us what gender judo is. So that is a term that was coined by another researcher, but I have taken it on myself because I think it captures a phenomenon that many researchers have studied, which is this need for women to balance perceptions that they're competent, with perceptions that they're warm. So like Cheryl Sandberg talked about this in lean-in, this sort of double-edged hurdle that women have to first demonstrate that they are competent in their job. If they demonstrate that they're competent, but don't demonstrate that they're warm, then they're seen as bitchy. And so they also, to be successful to be as successful as possible, they also have to combine competence with warmth. Men don't have to do that. Men can just focus on being competent because of the stereotypes associated with men and women. The gender judo is when we tell women, as I have, if you want to be successful, then you have to balance this one-pin competence thing. You have to be both assertive and likable, and that's complicated. So I think judo is a good metaphor for that. Well, that's what I wrote down in my notes for my simplistic mind is women need to be known as good at what they do, but avoid being labeled a bitch. And I think that's unfortunate. I certainly have some thoughts to add to this one. So my business mentor happens to be a woman. She also happens to be my mother, who traveled all over the world, coming up to the 80s and 90s, ran a company of 150 people. And she spoke to me about this often, obviously not because of gender judo, I'm a man. But for the purposes of articulating the correct way to influence people, the correct way to motivate people. And she would tell you, she would tell me that you don't have to use a hammer to get your way. You don't have to curse. You don't have to threaten. You don't even have to be snide if you're prepared and you have the facts. I think also that that's much more productive way to motivate people. Do you give that same advice? What I would say is that the best leaders are the ones who are strong, competent individuals who are also compassionate people. Whether they're male or female, the best leaders are the ones who are able to balance the tasks of their job with the interpersonal elements of their job. And some people have argued in our field that there's a feminization of leadership that what used to be a good leader 50 years ago, what used to be seen as a good leader, was much more dominant assertive, than what seen as a good leader now. And I think there's truth to that. And I think maybe that's what your mom was going into is that actually being a leader is a lot about managing, developing, nurturing relationships. And that's seen as a feminine behavior, feminine type to behavior. It doesn't have to be right. It can be anybody. I was about to argue with that. I don't think it's the feminization of leadership. I think it's the more productive way to motivate people. I actually, in my previous company, put a presentation together to our managers that I don't want you airing people out. There's never a reason for that. I want cold, calculated executors. I want individuals with equanimity. I think equanimity is a leader's greatest strength. Forget that. I think it's anyone's greatest strength in a workplace. If you can keep your mind when situations get tough, I think you have an advantage. Yeah, sure. Well, let's jump to the next one. So the next one I chose was the importance of belonging. Speak about the importance of belonging and how women are often excluded from social activities in the workplace that foster belonging. Yes. So it has been argued and I tend to agree that the need to belong is probably the most critical fundamental human psychological need. And what that gets at is our need to be and feel like we're part of something, our relationships, our communities, our critical to our psychological well-being. And you can see it in every part of life, whether it's what you do on the weekends or how you interact with your family, how you feel when you're alone versus with others. They've studied this by looking at people who have been inadvertently moved from society. So people who have been in a variety of bad circumstances where they haven't been able to connect with anyone for their whole lives. They've also looked at it, for example, in prisoners and solitary confinement. And in all of those data points show that if you don't have strong connections in meaningful ways to other people, then your well-being is in dire need for resilience, I guess. It's just problematic for basically every outcome you think about. And it's not about quantity, it's about quality. It's not about having 100 friends on Facebook or whatever. It's about having meaningful people in your life that you feel connected to and you feel like you are part of something meaningful. It's been argued that that's sort of like an evolutionary need because to survive, you needed to be part of a collective. If you were on your own, you wouldn't survive historically. And I would argue now, survival is still very much related to. I mean, quite a bit about community and tribe. I don't know if you've read tribe by Sebastian Younger, but I had a purple heart recipient sitting where you were sitting. And we got into this discussion that the community you return to as a soldier is more predictive of whether or not you have PTSD than facing combat. It's whether or not you share resources, you feel part of a community exactly the things you were talking about. And we literally were talking about that a week ago. And I'll admit, I've been part of the problem. I've definitely spent many days going to lunch with all men. I've spent plenty of days on a golf course with all men. Force interaction seems unproductive. Forcing a woman into a force in a golf, forcing a bad golfer at all seems unproductive. What are your thoughts on organic social interactions that include everyone? There's a tendency, just a psychological tendency, for what we call similarity attraction. So this goes back to the role model thing and though who we are connected to in variety ways. As humans, we tend to seek out, connect with, bond with people who are like us. And that with regard to gender, that's with regard to race, that's with regard to age, parent status. So when you walk in a room in this informal way, if you were to go to some cocktail party, the people that you talk to largely are going to be the people who look like you or who have a shared experience with you. And so if we want to get beyond that similarity attraction, then there has to be some opportunity to push us a little bit outside of our comfort zone because that's our psychological tendency for all of us. And that's why you see, you know, there's books about like, why do all the kids who are the same colors sit together in the cafeteria, right? You walk into a cafeteria and you see it, the similarity attraction or homophily is another phrase that's used to describe it. And so I think if you have these informal situations like a potluck or a cocktail party, then it may not be sufficient. What the research would suggest is that we need mentors and sponsors across gender lines, across racial lines, so that you have people who are like you to support you, but you also have people who are different from you to support you and sponsor you for your success. And so it sounds like leadership is very important. The leadership sets the tone. Is that what you're saying? I think that's true. I think there's a huge role that leaders play in creating norms and saying, this is how we are in this organization. This is how we do things and just this is the way it is, right? So if you think back to the MeToo movement and those CEOs who said in our company, we treat each other with respect. This is just not who we are. This is not what we're going to do. We're done. We are not doing this here versus the ones who kind of like tried to like make excuses or sweep it under the rug. You know, there's a difference in the cultural norms that gets set. But I think that's different from these just sort of everyday encounters that people have with their peers or you know, people who are ahead of them or behind them or whatever. 360 all around them. Those relationships are really important too. It's not just the top level. is although they're hugely important in setting the tone, I think it's these interpersonal connections that we build across all of those different lines that matter. - Tell me if this is not what you're saying, but it sounds to me, it's more important to be mindful of these decisions mindful of the social interactions than it is to force a seating arrangement at a cocktail party. - Well, I definitely wouldn't advocate for seeing that seating arrangement. I would say being mindful is important, being thoughtful about the conditions in which we're putting people. So having a company picnic that's all around golf would not be a good equalizer for gender race SES, right, that would create huge privilege for people who are male, white and high in SES. But then the question is, so what conditions do we create so that there is a more level playing field even in the social environment? - What have you found? What would be a good example of a situation that a business leader could create that would foster this sense of belonging and maybe intermingling? - I'm having a hard time thinking about informal ones. The ones that I'm thinking about are more formal, like policies and procedures, mentor and sponsor programs, employee resource groups, those are the things that come to mind. - One of the things I did, another subcategory I put in here is, and we've talked about this before on the podcast with a professor at UNT, is I think self-confidence is very closely related with belonging. And one of the greatest pieces of advice that I ever received was if you put in the work, you belong in any room. If you think of yourself as competent, if you believe in yourself, if you like yourself, if you think I'm a badass, it seems to me that maybe it's much easier to feel like you belong. What are your thoughts on that and what are your thoughts on developing self-confidence in young girls? - Well, so the first part of that, I would say yes, I would agree that they're correlated. If you feel like you belong, you're also gonna be more confident. So it could go the other direction, right? It's not just that confidence could lead to belonging, but belonging could lead to confidence, right? But I also think they're not perfectly correlated 'cause you can imagine being a person who has very high levels of self-confidence, knowing your own skills and abilities, but you walk into a room and everyone looks different from you. So if I'm a white woman and everyone else is a white man, or if I'm a black man and everybody else is a white woman, I am gonna feel like I don't belong. And so it doesn't matter how confident I am, there are like situational features that are just going to make it very difficult to feel like I belong. And that's one of the reasons that sheer representation actually matters. So I do think they're correlated. I don't think it's a perfect correlation. I think self-esteem is hugely important for girls. It's something I worry a lot about with my own daughters, not now because they have plenty of self-esteem at their ages, they're five and 10, my five year old, you know, if you ask her who the best person is in the world, she'll say, I'm the best, obviously. And my 10 year old used to say that too, not as much anymore. She is starting to transition into pre-adolescence and the research suggests that for girls, not for boys, adolescence is a time when self-esteem plummet. And that's one of many challenges of adolescence that are gendered. And I worry a lot about that with my 10 year old now, because as she moves toward middle school, scares, but she's a satan. What she might be facing and how that might undermine her own confidence. So what I try to do, which is not based on me, so she is, tell her that I think she's awesome. So, and now we laugh about that, she's like, mom, you're totally biased, you think you're my mom. And I'm like, yeah, I'm totally biased, but I think you're awesome. So I give her my confidence. I ask her what she likes about herself. So I try to help her find her own confidence. And then I also try to help her find situations where she can fail. And it's OK. So I think failure is really important for all of us and learning how to bounce back or bounce forward, whatever it may be, is really important. And so I hope to give her some of those experiences in ways that are not too scary. - And to be clear, I'm not suggesting for a minute that developing self-confidence alleviates the problem. And I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't still work on society or still work on the workplace. But I'm a big fan of working on both ends. And if I can develop girls that are self-confident and my two young girls, then it makes it easier. While also working on the workplace at the same time and trying to burn the candle at both ends, if you will, to try to work to a solution. Let's talk about maybe a solution that I thought about that you actually mentioned in your research. The importance of acknowledgement, especially from men in positions of power. Telling women when you think they're bad-ass, calling out their good ideas, acknowledging their effort, their talent. But what I used to say at my company is the importance of I see you. I see your effort. I see what you're doing. Do you spend much time educating others on the importance of acknowledgement, especially if you're in a leadership position? Yes, I do. So my colleagues and I have done some work both in research areas, but also in consulting opportunities where we are trying to cultivate allies or sponsors or people who will support women in particular. And in those engagements, we've developed an acronym. And we've developed it on the basis of what women said they wanted. So we didn't assume we knew what women wanted. We said, how can your male colleagues be better allies for you? What do you want? And these were women in academic positions, like mine. But to some extent, I think the suggestions would generalize. So the A in our allies acronym is access and opportunities. They actually want to be let into the room. They want to be part of the conversation. They want to be at the table. They want access. They also want people to listen and learn. And so I think that's where some of that acknowledgement comes in, so that actually feeling heard and understood and not having to explain things again and again, I think that is a huge part of it. The eye is inclusion. And what that looks like in this context is some of the social stuff, but the sort of day-to-day social stuff. Like, I have a male colleague who every day before COVID would go for a walk with another one of my male colleagues around campus. They would do that every day. And they never invited me. That's fine. I'm perfectly happy in my job. I don't feel excluded. But I could have felt in more included if they had invited me for a walk, or to go get a cup of coffee. Like, never did. And so there are easy things that we can do every day to support each other more. And that's just one example. The E is to an allies is to embrace an enhanced balance. And so what we know from the research is that women are much more likely than men to be responsible for a household and child care labor. And so for allies to embrace an enhanced balance, what that means is that they say, oh, we're not going to have meetings after 5 o'clock. Because guess what? Many of the women in our department unit don't have child care. Or want to get back to their families. Maybe the men in our department do too. Maybe that's what we're going to be as a unit. We're going to be the unit that wants to have work life balance. And then the S is in allies is sharing. So sharing your commitment to supporting women. And whether it's that ally sticker on your door, which typically has reflected a commitment towards supporting LGBTQ people. But we could also expand that to be people of a variety of genders. Having indications and being vocal about your commitment to supporting women, sharing what you've learned. Those are the things that women want from their male colleagues. They want people who listen to them. So I think acknowledgement, as you described it, is part of that. If that was all I got, if someone just said, I see you, that would be a great start. I would feel much better about that than not being seen. But I also want all of those other things. Sure. But for me, I see you at our company, not only me. I see you. It meant I see you. And I'm looking to promote you. And that we're recognizing you not just verbally. But maybe it's an income or maybe it's in positions. It reminds me of a story. I know Mona Rocha listens to this podcast. Mona Rocha is a lady who worked closely with me at my former company. And if Mona's kids are listening, your mom's a badass. And I gave her one note in the entire time, years we worked together. And that note was, when someone comes in our office to meet leadership at this company, you get up, you stand up tall, you look them in the eye, and you shake their hand. Because if they're here to meet us, they need to meet you. And that's one thing she pointed out when we parted ways, as kind of her favorite thing, is acknowledging not only that she belonged here, but that she had earned. it in your leadership here. And I don't know if it had anything to do with her being a woman, but prior to that, she was sitting at her computer. And just to remind her that you've earned this, stand up, be proud of yourself, be proud of what you can do. And I don't know if I'm doing a good job, and I'm not trying to do it my own horn. But I think about things like that when I hear you talk, is take that time to point it out to women, point it out to anyone, but especially women when they've earned it, and they may not be acting as if they belong or welcome them. Yeah, it's tricky because more than men, women have been told throughout their lives, they're not supposed to do those things. If they mention their accomplishments, it's seen more negatively than if men mentioned their accomplishments, women are supposed to be more modest than men, based on gender stereotypes and expectations. So we do have to retrain women to engage in those behaviors, but I think we also need to, and I don't think you're saying anything different, but I think we need to retrain men into being supportive of those, you know, reactions. Excited about the accomplishments of the women in the life is what I'm hearing you say. Well, let's move on to the maternal wall. Tell us what the maternal wall is and how it affects mothers. So the maternal wall is a phrase that has been used to describe the phenomenon by which long before they reach a glass ceiling, which was one of the original metaphors about women's lack of advancement in organizations. Long before they get to those highest strengths of an organization, women are stalled when they become, if and when they become mothers. And the data are very convincing that mothers are much less likely than their counterparts, meaning women without children, or men with or without children, to advance in organizations, to promoted, to receive a variety of financial outcomes that they're paid substantially less than men, within without children or women without children. The maternal wall sort of reflects all of those pieces of disparity that exist for women when they become moms. One of the quotes that I received from my mom when I asked her about this and when she was having children. And feel free to disagree with this. I want your reaction. As she said, it's not my employer's responsibility to deal with my family issues. It's mine and my husbands. And I took the job understanding the sacrifices. Would you agree with that or would you say no, no, no, it's the employer's job to deal with your family issues? I think that's separate from the maternal wall. So I think that point may be true. The problem is, so I think it doesn't have to be an employer's responsibility to provide childcare, for example, or to provide parental leave, right? They don't have to do that in our country. It's their opportunity to do that. And it's a solution, at least a partial solution for gender equality because of the ways that the distribution of household labor has emerged throughout history. If you want to have gender equity at work, you have to have gender equity as it relates to parental experiences. So I don't think it's for-profit organizations' responsibility to help families manage a variety of demands. But I think it's their opportunity because I think it helps them in the end. Because if you can retain your top talent, male or female, if your top talent is more engaged while they're there, then you're going to be more successful. I always use the example of Patagonia, and I'm going to be really sad if I find out one day that they're not actually as good as they seem. If you read about their work, life balance initiatives, it's really impressive. They have a huge on-site childcare facility. They have expanded maternal and paternal leave policies. They have flexible work arrangement. They have flex time, flex place, the work of it. They have basically everything a person could imagine when it comes to work-life policies. And they have no turnover. Nobody wants to leave. And when you add up the cost of recruiting, selecting, training, onboarding, all of those things for a new employee, they're saving so much money not to mention whatever they get on the other side from the reinvestment of their talent. When their talent is happy and want to perform well at work. So I think it's an opportunity for organizations. Well, I don't think I disagree with my mother's quote on its face, but the thing that jumped out at me was it's mind and my husband's responsibility. And you know, my doubt of the professional athlete, but yet he's known around Flitterville, Texas as the guy who was at H.E.B. with three kids hanging around his neck while my mom was in China while my mom was in Australia. And that jumped out at me as going be the type of husband, be the type of dad that supports your wife so she can make that kind of statement because she couldn't make that type of statement without a partner that was also supporting her. So that really jumped out to me. Let's talk a bit about maternal leave because I think this may be an interesting discussion here. It appears in many circles that 12 months is kind of being pitched as the standard bear for maternal leave. And I don't know if that's where you stand or not, but as someone who certainly is an ally, but also ran a business that presents a very difficult path. If you're in the position of losing someone for 12 months, that's a critical and demanding position. One that will need to be replaced, you can't just not have them then for 12 months. And more than be replaced, replaced with someone who's not going to accept temporary employment, what do you think are the compromises here? What have you guys been pitching around in your circles as a way that the woman can be successful and the company can be successful? I mean, honestly, my personal viewpoint is this is a societal issue and this should be a federal policy. There should be federal money, taxpayer money that goes to investment as families and in gender equality. So to me, that shouldn't be the burden directly on business. That's what other countries do, right? They don't manage it by individual companies doing things. They manage it largely at a social societal level. But we are where we are and I think companies, depending on their size, can be more or less creative in the solutions that they offer. So some women want a year. Some women want six weeks. So I think, again, that goes back to the, let's ask a person what they want. I think some women would prefer shorter leaves with part-time transition back. I think some employees would be willing to trade their own leaves for, you know, at the end of the year, if they have extra days off, they might be willing to invest those in their fellow co-workers. There's lots of different sort of creative solutions that I can minimize the burden financially on companies. Would this be providing childcare on site using government funds, provide childcare, are those the type of creative solutions you're talking about? Not necessarily. So I would see the federal funds as being supportive of the leave itself. So providing salary to the employee or providing funds to the organization for replacement hires or something like that. Yeah, I guess where my mind is going is the money is not what I need. I need someone with the same capabilities and the same knowledge. And if I don't have them, I need to train someone really quickly, which maybe won't be possible. So that's what I was kind of thinking through in my head is to use the same example of the person I work closely with. If I were going to lose her for 12 months, that's huge. So out my creative solutions, I was thinking, okay, well, we can provide childcare. That's really, really done well. We can provide education, you know, monastery schooling here on site, something like that so that it's hopefully a win-win. And we don't have to come up with a solution here, but it just seems like some of these problems are complex. And I don't think we should speak about them as if, you know, some simplistic broad generality is going to solve them. And, you know, I think that's where these conversations are important. Yeah. And the conversations with the individual parents, right? So what is it that you need? What would be your idea? And how can we work together to create a solution that's going to work for you and for me? So I need you or someone with your skills to work pretty much consistently all year. How can we make that happen together? Our work has shown that it's the misalignment. When one person thinks this is going to happen, like the supervisor thinks you're going to come back in 12 weeks and we're going to be good to go and the other person thinks actually I thought I was going to come back part-time. And when there's a misalignment in what's expected, that can be problematic. So having those very clear detailed conversations and revisiting them and having them again, because things change, right? Not every birth is the same, not every parent is the same. Well, that's not the first time communication has been suggested by you. It sounds like that's an underlying lesson is communicate. Speak to someone, ask them what they want. What? For sure. I think about that a lot. So I mentioned my husband is a physician. And years ago when he was starting to do some work into cultural competency in medicine, he said, well, you're an expert. What would you say? Someone who comes in and I think they might only want a female doctor based on the way that they look, but I don't know. How do I find out? And I'm like, just ask them. Like have a conversation. And you know, it's like this was 20 years ago or something. So his cultural competence has significantly evolved, I think, as has mine. But also be willing to recognize that none of us is perfect. If I am in an experience where someone treats me in a way that I feel as sexist, and I'm willing to have that conversation with them, to communicate with them about my perception and what I want them to do differently. And I can have that conversation. I think that's really good for everyone, right? Because it's a way to promote change, sort of, one conversation at a time. Yeah. And if you're the type of company, or the type of leader who makes space for these type of conversations, that it's a social norm within your company, that these kind of difficult conversations take place. And they take place in a space where no one's judging one another, where maybe even put in our foot in our mouth, but we're getting to a solution. I think that's what I'm hearing. Yeah. At the first day of my psychology of gender class every year, I say, y'all, I'm going to do my best, but I'm going to mess up. I'm going to use a stereotype. I'm going to speak about a female, in general, or a male's, in general. I'm going to not know the most recent terms that are being used or that are preferred by people of a variety of genders. Like, I'm not perfect. I'm going to mess up. I will do my best. I ask you, I invite you to let me know when I do. And I want to learn from that. And I really-- it's hard. It's hard when someone calls you out on your mistakes. It doesn't feel good because it's not who you want to be. It's not who I want to be. But it's also who I want to be. I want to be the person who wants to take that and to learn from it. And so I invite it. And I think I hope that that's what leaders are doing, too. Yeah. I agree with you. We need to promote the principle of charity, giving people the benefit of the doubt, while also trying your best to include everyone in the conversation and having conversation on terms that makes everyone feel comfortable. I think that's true. I also worry though about-- I've thought about this a lot as we have had this unique racial reckoning. And you know, thinking we've talked a lot about gender. But I'm a white woman. And what that means for my privilege and what I bring with me everywhere I go without my attention. And so I think a lot about the ways that my privilege manifests. And like how being a white woman influences how I'm perceived. So do I want, for example, black people to be charitable to me if I'm being inadvertently racist? I don't know. I want them to be willing-- I hope that they will explain to me or let me know that I have aired. And that it's not OK. But I also, I guess, hope that they be willing to give me a second chance. But I don't think I deserve more than one chance. I think I need to take the ownership of that. So I think the same thing applies for sexism, right? I think if you're just talking about sexism, I want to give people the benefit of it out. I want to have these open conversations. But at some point, I don't want to have to explain it anymore to my peers, to my colleagues. I don't want to have to tell them every day, hey guys, I'm here. You know, like you should be-- It's time for you to put in the work. Yeah. That's a good way to get it. You need to see that they're putting in the work. But certainly, creating space where when two individuals or a company are trying to do the right thing, that we have these conversations, this maybe gets into the next part, which I just kind of want to end by recapping some of the solutions we hit upon and maybe some other ones. The difficult part in life is not identifying a problem most of the time. It's what we do about it. How do we solve the problem? And I'm a firm believer that it's not enough to be just right. You need to be effective. It doesn't do any good to just stand in sanctimony. I want to be effective. And there are things men can do. There are things women can do. So maybe let's wrap this up by walking through some things women can do without putting the burden on them, obviously. But and then we'll end by maybe walking through what men-- and again, selfishly, what dads of daughters can do to help us progress. So let's talk about maybe just a couple of things that come to mind that you would say, here's my advice for women to prepare themselves to be successful. Yes. So from the perspective of what women can do to be successful in the workplace, the advice I largely give is around that gender judo. So finding a balance between demonstrating your competence first, like that's key. You can't be successful at work if you're not seeing as competent at your job. But then also balancing that with likeability with one. So conveying the ways in which you are sincere or kind or caring, that is typically the way that women are perceived most positively. I would also say that women should network with all kinds of people, male and female as mentors and sponsors. So it's important that women have people they can talk to socially and get the psychosocial support that they need. But it's also important that they get instrumental help, like someone who's a leader who can help make sure they get that next promotion or that next developmental opportunity. So women can be empowered with the knowledge that they can be proactive in seeking out those networks and opportunities and in conveying their desire to advance. So if the presumption, the stereotype is that women are going to prioritize their family, and that isn't true for a particular woman or isn't always true for a particular woman, then conveying, communicating directly, your career aspirations to a mentor sponsor or a boss can be helpful in creating that path towards advancement and organizational context. So if your goal as a woman is to succeed in that organization to advance to the next position, those are the kinds of things I'd be thinking about. That's great stuff. Let's move over to men and then girl dads in particular. What are the things you tell men? What are the things you tell daddies, in my case? Yeah, so for men, I would go back to that ally's acronym, which included a variety of behaviors. I would also say that in the big picture, being involved in families. So if each man, each father was as actively involved in raising their kids as each mom, if every dad was as involved as every mom, gender equity would be so much closer. That's my true belief based on what I know. So yes, actively engaged in every part of parenting and being a part of a partnership. I want to tack on to that, and then I'll let you have the last word. I'm 100% behind, as you say, dads leaning into a family. And it's clear that this benefits the child. It's clear that it's benefits your life. However, the point I would like to make is that I think it even benefits the father more. I get so much happiness, self-worth, from being a great dad. And I would make an argument that dads that are not part of raising their kids are part of helping their spouse are missing out more than anyone. - No, I agree entirely. And I think that's, I hope that people really hear that. I don't think that it's always perceived that way. So I think that also kind of broadens the scope of what can be done in terms of the solution is encouraging other dads what he just did, right? And making it everybody, like saying, hey, isn't it great that that dad decided to work part time? So he could be home part time. And that's what's encouraged, that's what's expected, that's what we value in our family systems and making that what is sort of lauded. - Well, I certainly think what you do is important. And I hope to start some conversations with people that don't typically think about these type of things. And thank you so much for your insight. - Thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)