Why gender equality is not just about women | Caroline Strachan | TEDxFolkestone

[Music] remember your first job remember what you were doing and how you felt I wanted to be a travel agent ever since the age of six so imagine my pride age 16 I become a travel agent I loved that job I love that red uniform and I even loved that bad 80's perm but I remember this wide-eyed anything's possible view of life fast forward 30 years and I still have that wide-eyed anything is possible in your career approach I've just since added the words with the right level of confidence and capability so this current huge

focus on women in the workplace this pendulum shift towards focusing so much on women has me a little bit confused is it to address years of historic imbalance is it to help women navigate around those trying to get in their way or is it to help women get out of their own way now I would say the last 10 years have truly addressed an imbalance and they've given women more of a voice in the workplace but now it's time to move on so what have I seen in the last 10 years that makes me come

to this conclusion I've seen a gender equality bandwagon rising in the workplace I've seen a rise in female entitlement I've seen some men who have this unspoken tension some men who believe they're they're becoming the sacrificial lambs of the workplace I didn't get the job because I'm a man guess what I also hear I didn't get the job because I'm a woman deeply ingrained sexist views some conscious some unconscious from both men and women companies that focus on gender equality just to get the badge and worse still is a badly judge PR exercise whipped out

each year on International Women's Day the sheer fact that there are still more male CEOs called David in the UK's top 100 companies than women 7 David's and 6 women now I think it's time to call out this gender equality bandwagon and it seems no one wants to so let's all give it a try today all I want is for men women or however you identify to have equal opportunity in whatever type of work you want to do that's quite an easy ask but somehow it's become very complex so rather than unpick everything I think

we should go back to some basics and it's three things that I think matter most confidence childcare and capability so confidence some how women have owned the label of lacking confidence and we give men the label of having too much confidence I don't believe that to be the case childcare women don't just become mothers people become parents so how have we made parental leave a woman's ask that's discriminating against men capability woman's networks have popped up everywhere women in finance women in tech women in retail and they focus on capability so are we feeding a

myth that women are less capable so confidence childcare capability somehow we've made all three a women's issue you're actually there in every person issue and we're going to use my personal story to test the theory here remember that 16 year old travel agent with a bad perm she actually did all right in life the next 20 years of her career went on very well I went from one good job to another great job I went from one great company to an even better company and I truly believed throughout all of that time I was purely

being judged on my capability and never my gender so when the media would approach me and say can we have your comment as a female leader I would always decline because my gender has never got in my way wasn't really the headline they were looking for so now if I think ahead beyond that my career's progressing I will admit as the roles got more senior I did start to get in my own way age 34 I was approached by this major global pharmaceutical company I couldn't believe my luck interview day arrives and I'm standing in

London outside this amazing building this BBC period drama style property and I was in awe of this interview I was about to have and this negative voice came into my head you don't deserve to be here you're not going to get the job I have no idea where that voice came from because I knew I was capable the hiring leader came out to meet me and we walked back to the interview room and no sooner had that interviewed room door closed I hadn't even taken my jacket off did I blurt out I really don't think

I'm the person you're looking for I don't have the process skills so I really don't want to waste your time what was I thinking now luckily the hiring leader Karen is an amazing woman and she said to me let me be the judge of that take a seat let's have a chat now strangely I got the job thankfully and that job actually that interview was the true start of my career Karen and many other leaders both male and female truly helped me develop beyond belief actually beyond my own belief so here I am living proof

that you can own and develop your own confidence and get out of your own way so let's think about men for a minute how would a man have approached that interview stereotypes that have us believe that a man would have gone into that interview with an amazing amount of confidence a I've got this kind of swagger now I've interviewed hundreds of people over the years and I can tell you that that doesn't do anything overconfidence is as bad as under confidence I truly believe that men and women can reside in four different types of confidence

persona and you can decide which one's you the maus lacking in confidence and truly aware that it holds you back some might call that self-sabotage the Swan lacking confidence under the surface but actually able to put a display of confidence above the surface some might call that bluster the peacock amazing displays of confidence but lacking self-awareness now this is you you might need a bit of help because you won't recognize it in yourself necessarily or the cat this innate sense of confidence and capability matched with self-awareness some might say the holy grail of confidence now

I can share after many years of effort I finally spend most of my days in a cat-like state with many swan-like days that appear just to keep me in check so confidence it's not a female issue it's an every person issue so back to my personal story my career continued to progress beautifully and I didn't notice turning 40 years I was in hospital with my newborn twin daughters what I did notice age 40 was how different I felt as a working mum I wanted to be this amazing leader in the workplace but I also wanted

to be this amazing mum why wouldn't you be with those two adoring daughters but I just I really couldn't work out how to be both I wanted to be this high performer but that high performer that was trying to get home from so that I could bath the kids that high performer that would run the last five minutes home from the train station every day just to get extra minutes with my children now some days I wouldn't make it which means I didn't see the children on those days so I would have to creep into

their nursery after they've gone to sleep just to inhale all that wonderfully intoxicating baby smell it was heartbreaking so something had to give now the stars aligned and an industry colleague and I decided to start a company together a company where we could do the work that we love on days and hours to suit our families with complete calendar control it was a radical idea but actually really worth a shot and three years later we go from strength to strength and have been able to provide that same environment for many other working families around the

world here's the thing my business partner is a man and my life partner is a man and they both have that same yearning to be with their children so for instance my husband he has adjusted his work life so that he can be at home to be able to drop off the children now he sometimes sends the children off to school with wonky bunches in their hair but that's alright he does it now and I'll also admit that he's actually better at doing their hair now than I am but that's okay too as well so

thinking outside of my personal story I was really fascinated to learn more about how other working parents address this and GQ magazine the men's magazine share that in 2019 their readers number one focus is to become and more present father and YouTube share that the majority of how to parenting videos are viewed by men under the age of 35 so if men do want to be more present fathers why have we made parental leave and flexible working our working moms request on that note why do we even use the term working mum when we never

say working dad I believe the arrival of children is where the actual gender divide in the workplace it starts let's take parental leave as an example as a woman in the UK most large companies would give me six months paid parental leave my husband is a man two weeks so I get 12 times more parental benefit than a man would in the same company imagine if that was holiday leave women get one week and men get 12 weeks that's a radical new idea let's try and get that one through there would be complete uproar so

I don't understand why men aren't out protesting in the streets for their equal parental leave and companies don't understand that they are discriminating against men I believe those policies worked in the past but we're entering a new social era and it's time to move on childcare and every person issue women don't just become mothers people become parents so back to my personal story so I've got this great company where it can be the leader I want to be around my children the elusive balance everyone always says to me how lucky you are I actually felt

guilty and selfish lucky me that I'd created this wonderful environment I could do both but how many other thousands of women were there out there and I'll admit I was just thinking women at that point who wanted the same they wanted a career but they wanted to balance it with their families I chatted to some friends about him and we decided that we were gonna start a women's network to support women with that challenge we thought we'd be able to help about a hundred women and two years later we have more than two and a

half thousand members who share that the network has become a safe space to grow and to ask for advice now here's the thing about gender networks I worry that they're actually gender ghettos a place where only women go now women helping women is amazing I have seen the magic happen but it's not reality it's not what work looks like work is not full of just women it's men and women so our women guiding women actually missing the full story so our gender networks this barrier to hide behind or are they actually a safe space to

grow I realized at this point I had a really rich view on how women felt but not men and luckily for me that came in the form of a dinner out with an industry colleague I respect and admire over dinner he challenged me on my women's network involvement and he said to me what about us white middle-aged males yeah it's exactly what I did actually I was louder than that I laughed out loud for quite a long time and then the laughter was followed with oh but you've had it so good for so long you've

probably heard that line before as soon as I said it I realized and I stopped myself I was in a reaction trap so many people are caught in this gender equality bandwagon reaction trap so instead I stopped myself I listened he was really patient with all of my questions and that one night was a massive turning point for me I realized I needed way more male perspective so every conference I attended every meeting coffee break every weekend barbecue I would be hunting down male research targets and oh boy they didn't let me down I listened

to hundreds of men so thank you to all of those men that were very patient with my questions and there were four key themes that came out of that and I'm going to summarize them with some quotes why do women need additional support if I want to learn something new I just have to get on and do it I can't take more than two weeks parental leave my leaders will think I'm not serious about my career yeah that's what I women go through all the time I have to leave this company as a man there's

a target on my back there's no way I'm getting promoted above a woman and one that really got me was the man that said you know I've always looked at women as equals but now there's all of this focus on women it makes me think I was wrong what was I missing so we're missing something by not bringing men on the journey with us but I will also share that there was some also some really moving feedback the men that said to me thanks so much for asking me how I feel about gender equality because

as a man no one's ever asked to the CEO who said do you know what Caroline I never have issues with workplace confidence but I do really struggle with dad confidence and dad Gil dad confidence and dad Gill I'd never heard that before the media would have us believe it's just mums that struggle with confidence and guilt so is it not just confidence and guilt so instead of drawing up their gender War battlefields and allowing men and women to retreat into their gender camps how about we try something new I think we need to break

recurring conversations and break taboos and move forwards together as allies every time you hear a conversation a situation or a person get stuck in the past call it out talk about it and move on I see a future where we can have a truly gender equal workplace and I think there's three things that we can all do to help us get there imagine a time where everyone owns their own confidence and we stop labeling men and women as having different types of confidence and those cats they go help others develop their confidence childcare imagine a

time where there is absolute equal parental leave in the workplace and men actually take the leave that they're offered women don't just become mothers people become parents imagine a time where we stop singling out women for specific capability development and bring men on a journey with us I truly believe it's time to move on I'm ready to move on are you [Applause] [Applause]