Kate Wagner says quotas and targets could be the only ways to improve female representation, but they will never succeed while the meritocracy myth exists.
By Kate Wagner*
Minister for Women, Kelly O’Dwyer
We’re barely four months in, but 2018 already feels remarkably like the year of women.
We’ve usurped power structures with #MeToo; used Time’s Up to confront rape culture; reprised worldwide protests with the Women’s March; and now, Australia finally has a Minister for Women who isn’t afraid to call herself a feminist.
So why are we still scared to introduce quotas that would encourage women into leadership roles?
For one, many think quotas will undermine merit, that deserving applicants will miss out in favour of fulfilling predetermined numbers.
Women commonly reason they only want a job if they get it on their own merit.
Nobody wants to be the ‘token woman’
Others are determined not to be the “token woman” in a board room.
There’s an omnipresent fear everything they’ve worked for will be dismissed as illegitimate; they’ll be merely another charity case to make the powers that be feel more at ease.
But this line of thinking comes from believing meritocracy — having all positions hired based on merit — is the only trustworthy way to assess ability and that’s simply not the case.
In fact, meritocracy is a myth.
The fact both men and women disparage quotas as a “hollow victory” for women should they make it to the top would be laughable if it weren’t so indicative of society.
Yes, people who work hard deserve to be rewarded but to imply they’re the most qualified from hard work alone is either naive or wilfully obstinate.
To be hired by a prominent law firm for your scores at university is certainly an achievement, but one that may have been made remarkably easier by not needing to work a part-time job, living at a private college on your parents’ coin and having connections in the field.
That’s in no way to say they weren’t chosen for the role itself on “merit”, but pretending merit exists in a separate bubble to social circumstance is unreasonable.
“Where do you think you got your talent? Where do you think that inclination to work hard comes from?” Robert H. Frank, author of Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, asked Vox.
“These are things determined by genes and upbringing, in some unknown proportion, and it’s quite ludicrous to claim moral credit for them.”
Countless studies have proven we do not live in a meritocracy — merit is socially constructed and gendered.
Introducing blind auditions for major symphony orchestras in the US increased women’s chances of advancing through preliminary rounds by 50 per cent.
The New York Philharmonic alone saw their new hires jump from 10 per cent female to 45 per cent.
Women didn’t magically become better musicians overnight, but the opportunity for bias was eliminated and suddenly the workplace was more diverse.
This isn’t to suggest men are setting out to discriminate, but very much questions the subjective concept of merit.
In recognition of International Women’s Day, Minster for Women, Kelly O’Dwyer proposed targets to increase the amount of women in Parliament, insisting: “We need to look at what barriers there are and we need to eliminate them.”
She said targets would still allow candidates to be preselected based on merit.
“No one for one moment is suggesting you don’t select people who aren’t up to the job,” she said.
“There are a lot of women of great merit who could make a wonderful contribution in the Parliament.”
The fact she even needs to point-blank say we wouldn’t hire an incompetent woman just for her gender proves how messed up the whole thing is.
Where are the female pollies?
Our Parliament has woefully inadequate female representation and that flows directly into policies and laws.
Shadow Minister for Women, Tanya Plibersek said “very few government policies or decisions are gender-neutral”.
“Mistakenly thinking they are is how inequality becomes embedded in revenue and expenditure decisions,” she told reporters at the National Press Club recently.
“Australia levies the GST on tampons but we don’t apply it to Viagra.”
“Only a bunch of blokes sitting around a table would think that was a good decision.”
Women in power begets women in power
Obviously it’s not just our politicians with a huge gender disparity in positions of power.
In Australia, female graduates are outnumbering male graduates at a tertiary level, but this shift isn’t reflected in the private sector or academia.
The underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in turn perpetuates damaging stereotypes and directly impact women’s wages.
It also reinforces women’s insecurities in their own abilities.
What about people of colour?
In 2017, fewer women ran Australia’s top companies than men named John, Peter or David, and while that’s a blight on gender disparity, the names also indicate there isn’t a lot of racial diversity at play either.
Shivani Gopal, founder of The Remarkable Woman, said as a financial planner she saw very few females in top positions, but when she did they were always middle-aged, white women.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was really happy seeing those women succeed, but I think seeing is believing, and not seeing any women at the top who were Indian or Asian was really disheartening,” Shivani confessed to ELLE.
The cultural glass ceiling — or bamboo ceiling — means women of colour are often forced to fight even harder than their white counterparts.
There’s a pervasive typecast that Indian and Asian women are submissive, sweet servers, which makes contending for leadership positions especially difficult.
“Meritocracy is an absolute myth,” Shivani asserts.
“If positions were truly acquired on merit, companies would look far more visually diverse.”
In the words of someone wiser than me: “I will know that we have reached equality when a mediocre woman is put in charge of a company.”
So let’s put the concept of merit firmly to bed and start using quotas to achieve total social equality.
* Kate Wagner is a features writer for Bauer Xcel Media, Australia and New Zealand.
This article first appeared at www.elle.com.au.
