Transcript of Unconscious Bias, A Stick of Dynamite, and More As We Look Back on 2021
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Cathy: Hey everyone, welcome to Parity, a podcast for everyone ready for a workplace of true gender parity with equal numbers of women and men at all levels of organizations, including the coveted top positions. Women have had the right to vote for 100 years, but most experts believe that we will not achieve gender equality for another 135 years. 135 years is a long time friends to wait for equality. The goal of this podcast is to accelerate this change by being a coach, mentor and trusted friend for all of you who are ready now.
I'm Cathy Nestrick, waiting for 135 years until we achieve workplace parity is not okay with me and that is why I was motivated to start this podcast with my good friend Deborah.
Deborah: And hello listeners, I am your co-host, Deborah Pollack-Milgate and today we have a special episode for you as we look back at 2021. Yes, look back at 2021. We are going to take a look at the state of working women throughout the world because as you know, listeners, promoting and supporting working women is our reason for existence. We are also going to consider what we've learned in Season one of the Parity Podcast. Cathy, it has been a wild ride for me delving into unconscious bias, men as allies, corporate culture and motherhood, just to name a few of the topics that we've delved into today.
As we look back, we're going to tell you listeners what has stood out for us throughout the year with a focus on some high-level learnings that we've made. We will also give you a sneak peek into what to expect with Season Two. And by the way, I could not be more excited about Season Two.
Cathy: You know, Deborah this year has been such a bizarre journey as we have all tried to navigate COVID. There were ups and there, and unexpected left turns as we thought we were entering a post COVID world and then we had the delta variant and now the omicron variant and I'm sure there's going to be future variants. I don't think we're done.
But there have been some positives. I would like to hear what you think but for me, the most positive development for working women in 2021 was the discussion. We are finally at a point where we are talking about the unique challenges that women face. We face bias at work before we have children and then after we have children, the bias grows. For Black, Indigenous, and other women of color, there are additional biases. Listeners, you can check out our episodes about unconscious bias and working mothers to learn the details, but the bias is well-documented. This bias repeated over and over again is exhausting and causes higher rates of burnout. And on top of bias at work, women also experience bias at home with women being responsible for more childcare and household chores.
There is a limit to what women and working mothers can take. And we're finally talking about it. I have high hopes that in 2022 organizations and governments will take action. But for now at least there's talk and for that I'm grateful and I'm also hopeful. What about you, Deborah?
Deborah: Cathy, I couldn't agree more with what you've just said. And the first thing I want to say about what was the best development in 2021. I want to preface it with making sure that we don't discount how hard 2021 was for so many people, especially women. We started out with the pandemic in 2020. I don't think any of us thought it would stretch through 2021 and we continue to deal with these issues. So the first thing I want to acknowledge is just straight up how difficult this year and the past two years have been for everyone. But as you said, and I agree completely, the real chance, the opportunity right now and through the pandemic, has been to have these discussions and the ability for people to be real with each other. In the course of the pandemic, we saw dogs enter on to the screen, we saw children in the background and I think we all saw more of our colleagues and saw sides of our colleagues that we hadn't seen before.
So that I think was something that then opens up the world and opens up our possibilities and, as you said, to have these conversations. So what I see that we have right now is an opportunity to create a workplace for women that really works. We're all doing business differently in 2021 and in 2022, we're doing it differently from how we did in the fall of 2019.
And so that is an incredible opportunity for us to remake the workplace in a way that is more conducive to promoting women and to giving women the opportunity to expand on their careers. And this is something that was highlighted in the McKinsey report just recently in September. In the McKinsey report this year, it's their Women in the Workplace Report from September 27. They talk exactly about the fact that we now have this moment in time where we can make something different. And I would just note, we released our Episode 9 on motherhood on September 13th, 2021. So I like the fact that the McKinsey report and their focus on the workplace and motherhood coincided with our own episode on the topic.
Cathy: That's great to hear. And of course McKinsey has wonderful data. Listeners, we will be sure and drop a link to that report, so you can take a look yourselves. I totally agree with all of your comments about the positives.
Let's also talk about the negatives. What do you think was the most negative development for working women in 2021?
Deborah: Yeah, and this one Cathy is easy for me because you keep saying 135 years. Now it's going to take 135 years for us to reach workplace parity. And that's again because of the pandemic really holding women back or setting women back. It highlights the fact that the women on the whole are still disproportionately responsible for the lion's share of the housework and caregiving, at least that's the only explanation I can think of. And again, going back to the McKinsey report because I think there's a lot of interesting data, and McKinsey reported that one in three women has considered leaving the workforce in 2021. And here's the startling thing about this figure, it is actually up from 2020 when one in four women reported thinking about leaving the workplace.
So 2021, in that sense, was obviously more difficult for women than 2020. Some other findings that I think are really important from this report are: Number one, the report says women are burned out and again, I can only presume that some of this is from the increased responsibility that women have taken on during the pandemic and this past year. McKinsey also reports that there's a broken rung that is keeping women back. Women are not promoted at the very first time that they have an opportunity to be promoted. And Cathy, we talked about this from the very beginning in Episode 1, and it's even worse for women of color. Women of color continue to lose ground relative to others, to Black men and also to White women.
Women are working harder to meet the needs of their employees, the McKinsey report says. And on diversity efforts, their work is often going unrecognized. So there's a lot to focus on - a lot of problems to be solved - that we've seen in 2021. Again, Cathy I'll restate what I said before. The upside of this is we're talking about these problems and we have the opportunity to deal with them.
Cathy: Yes, and I really can't add a whole lot to that because that's basically my answer to the most negative thing in 2021. You know, just watching all of the women dropped from the workforce has been so disheartening. And you mentioned that part of this is all of the home responsibilities. I think another reason for what we're seeing is that women are overrepresented in underpaid jobs. So those low wage jobs like restaurants and retail jobs, some of these jobs disappeared as a result of COVID were held by women and some of those women unfortunately had to drop for those reasons.
And then of course there's the burnout that we keep talking about. All the biases that we have to face day in and day out, it just becomes too much at some point and unfortunately I think that's what is happening with a lot of women.
So let's now pivot and talk about the Parity Prescription. One of the things that we said from the outset, Deborah, was that we might need to adjust the Parity Prescription along the way. As a reminder listeners. Deborah and I developed the Parity Prescription as a way to simplify the various elements that impact women achieving equality. The Parity Prescription spells SCRIPT which is:
S – Stop Trying to Change Women
C – Create Diverse Teams
R = Recognize Unconscious Bias
I – Intentionally Include
P – Partner with Men as Allies
T – Talk About the Issues
Deborah, now that we've considered both the highs and the lows, and we've lived through 2021, what do you think about the Parity Prescription? Did it hold up or do we need to make some tweaks?
Deborah: So Cathy, I'm going to say straight up that I am very proud of the Parity Prescription and I think overall it held up well. It held up very well for its purposes for anyone who is interested in thinking about what a workplace should look like. All of these elements together really achieve parity for women. Now I will say there is one caveat. For me our episode on motherhood was a real turning point because as I looked at the issue more closely and really faced up to the incredible challenges and thought back to the incredible challenge that I faced as a mother, especially in those early years, I realized there is a tension there between the demands of work and being a parent. It's not like I didn't know that already, I knew that there was a tension there.
Cathy: You felt that tension.
Deborah: I did, I felt it, but what I didn't really realize is how critical that tension is and how devastating it can be for women in their careers when they are trying to imagine it all. And I think our prescription in some ways assumes that women will succeed if we follow it, but we still need a huge support system and we don't address that in our prescription. We don't address the fact that there is not a huge support system out there for parents and especially women to allow them to do it all to the extent that's possible. And I think that what that really boils down to is we don't address the need for childcare across a broad spectrum of workers who need it. We don't acknowledge the disproportionate impact that the lack of childcare may have on women who are struggling to support a family. So that's something I've pondered a lot this year and it's potentially something that our Parity Prescription indirectly addresses. But I think maybe it doesn't address head on. Cathy, what do you think?
Cathy: Well, I think you've made some good points. I hadn't really thought about it, but you're right. The prescription includes partnering with male allies, right? We need other people besides ourselves, to provide support for women in the workplace. But you know, allies aren't going to take care of our children unless you have a really good ally, right?
Deborah: Yeah, exactly.
Cathy: And I suppose the concept of allies does not just mean people at work. It's also people at home and in our communities. But you're right, we still need some extra support for childcare, however that comes.
In addition to that, I would also say that we need to put an exclamation point at the end [of the Parity Prescription] or maybe a stick of dynamite underneath the words. And by that, listeners, I mean we really need to light a fire under leaders and decision makers to take action! You know, the Parity Prescription is a simple script. It's easily understood. It's backed by research and studies - that's the most important thing. This isn't stuff that Deborah and I are making up here. It's backed by research and studies. It's also common sense and I think it aligns with what we teach our children. You know, we raise our kids to share their toys and play well with others and that sounds an awful lot like creating diverse teams and intentionally including everyone.
So I like both of our answers. Your answer is we need to do some more to support the child care needs that parents face, but also, hey, we've got a pretty solid Parity Prescription and let's start seeing some action leaders.
Deborah: And Cathy, I love the stick of dynamite for many reasons, but I also think that applies specifically to the childcare issue. We have a workplace that does not accommodate families and so the stick of dynamite also needs to apply to the workplace, right? We need to rethink the support systems that are out there, and how those can be built into the workplace to support parents. So I love your answer.
So Cathy with respect to the Parity Prescription because we're on that topic, which element of the Parity Prescription do you think is most necessary for us to focus on right now?
Cathy: I would say Recognize Unconscious Bias. I think that if we had a better understanding of bias, we would see it more clearly as it's playing out and we would move away from it. You know, we would see it, recognize it, and stop it, because as human beings, most of us want fairness in the world. But bias prevents fairness, it blocks it. So for example, if a new mom isn't allowed to work on a project because her boss thinks that she won't have the time, then that isn't fair to her. Or if a woman is constantly interrupted during calls and can't get her ideas on the table or her ideas are hijacked by a man, then that isn't fair to her. If a Black woman expresses her frustration at work, but people accuse her of being an angry Black woman, then that isn't fair to her.
Most of us would agree that all of these examples are unfair but they continue to happen over and over again. We're not making progress because too many people don't see the bias. If you're not on the receiving end of the bias, sometimes you just don't see it, but it's there and it's not fair. So that's an element that I really want to dig into more deeply during Season 2 so that we really offer some solutions to listeners so that they can disrupt the bias. So Deborah, what about you? Which element do you think is the most important?
Deborah: Well, Cathy, I can't top that. I agree completely. If you can't get to the root of the problem, then we can all have good intentions but they may be very misguided intentions. So I absolutely agree with you that unconscious bias in some sense is the key to it all. I think related to that - since you focused on unconscious bias = is Stop Trying to Change Women. It's related to unconscious bias. And this is how you and I started out as well [in Episode 1] talking about our bookshelves, being full of advice on how women can be difficult to adapt to the workplace. And that really as you and I have talked about, that's not a good strategy. Everyone is focused on diversity, equity and inclusion right now. But I am concerned that people are not being thoughtful enough. If you don't dive deep into the issues and get at the root of what it means to stop trying to change women, then you're going to have a workplace that continues to operate against women.
So much of what I hear continues to be focused on self-help for women, for women to empower themselves. And if we don't realize the unconscious bias, again, going back to unconscious bias against women, we are going to continue to treat the issue as one that just requires women to change, to be better, to empower themselves. And if we take that approach, I'm convinced women will fail because we need men and we need the workplace to shift. We can't do it ourselves. Nor does the workplace benefit from our talents if we're required to do all the work.
I think we've learned this year, especially in our treatment of authenticity, that being our authentic selves - bringing our best selves to work - is something that is diametrically opposed to this strategy of constantly trying to adapt to the workplace. We can't do both: We can't both be our authentic selves and adapt to the workplace. So that's my response Cathy, to that one.
Cathy: What you said about authenticity really does resonate with me. I didn't appreciate the importance of bringing our authentic selves to work, but I do now.
Deborah: So, now that we've considered what happened through 2021, how do you think, Cathy, that we handled addressing the issues in Season 1? Are you satisfied?
Cathy: I feel like we did a really nice job of laying out the fundamentals, but for Season 2, I would like to go deeper. We need to really understand how things are working, particularly, as I mentioned earlier, unconscious bias. So one thing that I'm working on right now with a legal organization, is we're trying to figure out how we can show people who don't receive the bias, who are not on the receiving end of bias, how can they really experience it and see it? One thing that we're working on are actually skits. We're going to have various people play roles - people will have talking parts - in common scenarios where unconscious bias happens and we'll have people who aren't typically on the receiving end of the unconscious bias, play these roles. We will have some white men who will play these roles and then we'll talk about it.
I'm really hopeful that this format will be helpful and if it is, then maybe there's something similar that we can do for you listeners because I want to somehow bring it to you so that you can see the bias, particularly for those of you who are not on the receiving end of all this unconscious bias. So, Deborah, what about you? How do you think we did during Season 1?
Deborah: Well, first of all, I love the idea of putting people in roles to do some role-playing so that they can understand the situations they would find themselves in if they looked different from how they look. So I think that's a fantastic idea, I look forward to seeing how that plays out. I hope we can use it here.
I'm proud, as I said before, Cathy, I'm really proud. We have a framework that I believe in and that I hope will provoke people towards real solutions. I want to focus on just one comment we got that I thought was really nice. The comment [by an Apple Podcast listener] was “it's hard to believe that there is anything new to be covered on this topic, but Cathy and Deborah's ideas gave me different ways to think about an old subject.” So I love that people also said we'd given them concrete tips of things they could do. I'm incredibly proud of that. I'd also like to just highlight how much I loved bringing in Dr. Nithila Peter and Tracy Edmonds to deepen our conversation once we had the framework of our approach.
So, those are my thoughts with respect to Season 1 and how I think we did overall. Of course, things didn't always go as planned during our first year as podcasters. So I'd like to ask you, Cathy, what was the biggest surprise for you as we entered the public space and shared our views, which I will note was a bit scary, right?
Cathy: Yes, it absolutely was listeners. I'll share with you a little later about my first few episodes, but in terms of surprise, I think that my answer is going to be about the people. So when we started this podcast, Deborah, I knew that you and I would be collaborating a lot. But I didn't really appreciate how many other people would be involved in this process and the new relationships that we would make and build. And so for that, I am very grateful. And listeners, we were very deliberate about trying to include women from the outset. So part of this was our own doing. We reached out to Faith Blackwell who is an awesome photographer in Indianapolis. She handled our photography. Kathleen Fennessy, who is one of your law firm partners, helped with our logo and trademark. Laura Scott who is a former colleague of mine - she set up our LLC and then we've got to give a big shout out to Isabel Robertson who handled our podcast editing. I'm not sure we would have a Season 1 without her.
Deborah: No kidding!
Cathy: Exactly! Listeners, we really owe a big debt of gratitude to Isabel. Additionally, our partnership with Dr. Nithila Peter has been fantastic. She reviewed all our Season 1 scripts, listeners, and she helped us strengthen our message. And for me, she really helped strengthen my voice. I really am more sure-footed about how I key topics them so that I'm heard and understood. I also have to mention Allison Lin. She gave us a big shout out in Plastic News and she's given us such awesome feedback on many of our episodes. So thank you Allison.
And there have been so many others of you listeners who have reached out directly or reviewed us on Apple Podcasts. And we pay attention to those [reviews] and we react and pivot to the extent we need to. So thank you for all of that. Finally, most of you are women, but I'm so heartened to see the men that are in the audience. We still need more men because as we said from the outset, this has got to be a 50/50 endeavor with women and men both working together. Sl let's still try to get more men in the audience, but I am very grateful for the men we do have.
So people are my biggest surprise, Deborah, and that's been a very pleasant, positive surprise. What was your biggest surprise?
Deborah: Yeah, well, first of all, I agree with you completely and I didn't mention Tracy's name before, so let me mention her last name, that's Tracey Edmonds and her book is Wild Hair. So I'll give one more plug for Wild Hair and for our episode in our interview with Tracy.
My biggest surprise this year, and I'm gonna pivot here a little bit. My biggest surprise as a co-host of this podcast has been the fact that I've had conversations - people have started talking to me more candidly about their experiences - and what I've heard a lot about is actually explicit bias. Cathy, this is something that you and I really have not talked about a lot. If there is another element that we haven't tackled so far, I think it is this explicit bias. I've heard so many stories from women who have told me they've been paid less. They've been mistreated after getting pregnant. They had glowing reviews before they were pregnant and then the exact opposite once they were pregnant, or who have had their bosses ask for unreasonable favors, and I'm not talking about sexual harassment here, although that could be another issue as well. None of these women have spoken up. All have dealt with, almost uniformly, by moving to different jobs. So none of them had a satisfactory way of dealing with this outright bias that they encountered. And everyone who spoke to me was also very concerned about confidentiality, asking me not to say anything as if I could even think of who I would say something too. “Make sure that you keep this confidential.” And so, my conclusion from that is that there is a lot of outright gender discrimination. Forget about unconscious bias for a moment. A lot of outright discrimination taking place that women are dealing with alone, and they're frankly missing out on the support that they need. So, these are stories that need to be told and something we should consider for Season 2.
Cathy: If I could jump in Deborah, I totally agree with what you're saying and I think that as women, we sometimes feel like we can't talk about these issues or share them publicly because we don't want to be viewed as troublemakers. And I hear too often that we shouldn’t play the victim card. Have you heard that? Don't play the victim card?
Deborah: Oh yes.
Cathy: I think there's this cultural pressure on women to keep quiet when these sorts of things happen and that's really unfair and unfortunate and something that we really need to stop because we've got to talk about the issues or we're not going to make progress.
Deborah: Yes, I agree completely. And there isn't a good mechanism in place for women to deal with these issues, which is another reason we don't feel comfortable in speaking up because when we do, we also end up moving jobs, but we don't do it by choice a lot of times. Right? The woman, there's an issue that comes up often. It is the woman who suffers and has to move on and then has to deal with the stigma that she's created by speaking up. So yes, agreed.
Cathy: Yes, we need to take this on. I agree.
Deborah: The other surprise - I couldn't decide between the two. So I had to have two surprises. The other thing that surprised me is just the fact that women have even more skills to offer than I knew. So I really didn't know - I knew women were fantastic - but I didn't know just how fantastic women are. So Cathy the data you uncovered in particular on leadership competencies and the fact that women hugely excel when it comes to the exact qualifications for being a good leader. That was surprising to me.
Cathy: Yes, people rate women higher than men in 19 out of 21 core leadership competencies. That's a huge number.
Deborah: It's absolutely amazing.
Cathy: Yet women are not in the leadership roles, not to the same extent as men.
Deborah: No, so again, I had no idea how fantastic women could be and really are as leaders.
Cathy: Yes, we are fantastic. And don't forget it, listeners!
Deborah: And men, we love you too, but we need to absolutely highlight the fact that we're missing out on some fantastic leadership opportunities from women. So Cathy I know that we've both, in addition to this, we both learned so much over the past year from each other, from our reading and from our exchanges. What comes to mind when you think about maybe your top one or two things that you've learned over the year.
Cathy: Well, maybe it's because you've reminded me or maybe because it's the truth, I'm not sure, but I would point to the women in leadership episode. I knew that many women are very good leaders, but I didn't know that there were these 21 core competencies out there and that women excel. I think listeners, it was something like 60,000 people were surveyed and 60,000 people concluded that women had skills that exceeded the skills of men in 19 out of the 21 competencies. So I'm hopeful about that data point but at the same time I'm confounded about why aren't women promoted into more leadership roles? I mean what's going on here? And of course, to me it all comes back to unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias has to be the reason for this and again, why I think that is such an important topic for us to understand and delve into more deeply in Season 2. What about you, Deborah?
Deborah: I've learned so much but my biggest revelation, I think, may be the amount of information that we have out there that could help us to affect real change. You and I have looked at a lot of resources this year and if organizations want real change, there are solutions. As you and I pieced together our own thoughts on how to implement the Parity Prescription, we found resources to draw from. For example, we found Better Allies by Karen Catlin. We found How Male Allies Support Women for Equality by Julie Kratz. We found the All Report by Diane Primo. And there are many, many more and these are all before we even get to McKinsey and all of their fantastic resources. Additionally, we viewed information from Diversity Lab and Harvard Business Review.
So, the revelation for me is that there really are these solutions out there and all we need to do is get the word out and hope that people want to make change because if we, if people do want to make change, we absolutely can do it.
Cathy: Yes, I'm with you 100% and I think that part of our mission is to help get the message out so that more people hear it and more people will begin making change.
Deborah: Cathy, do you have a favorite moment of all of our podcasting moments together?
Cathy: Well, I'll tell you what my favorite moment was not and that was not the first episode or two when we hit the record button and I was like, um, hi everyone. As my kids would say, those were awkward moments as I tried to find my voice. But I would say that my favorite moments are when you and I make a genuine connection, when we laugh together, when we have aha moments together, which we've done during this episode. That didn't happen at the beginning, but it's happening more and more and I think in Season two, we're going to continue getting more comfortable in our podcasting roles. So I'm looking forward to that. What about you? Deborah, what was your favorite podcasting moment together?
Deborah: Well I agree with everything you said. I also want to highlight the moment when we were podcasting on authenticity. I really loved that. I think for some of the same reasons that you did, which is there was more opportunity for spontaneous connection. And so I very much enjoyed listening to your answers on what motivates you and in particular your philosophy, your motivation, your drive for justice and equality on a larger scale. I was riveted by your answer and think that hearing that from you very much helps me as a co host for this podcast in understanding just exactly how far we can go, how deep we can dive and really sets the stage, I think for Season 2 for us to work together.
Cathy: Well, thank you for that, Deborah. I really value our partnership and I do have really high hopes not just for Season two, but that we can really make change. That's what this is all about listeners. We want to help make change and hopefully together, all of us can head in that direction.
Deborah: So you're going to get rid of the 135 years for me next year, Cathy, is that what you're saying?
Cathy: Ha! That will be our goal. We can't get rid of it, but we need to shave some years off. We need to shave years off listeners.
Deborah: Yes! So Cathy, do you have a list of the top two or three tips that we've given this year? What resonated for you throughout the Season.
Cathy: My favorite tips are going to be around unconscious bias and lean in male allies. So on unconscious bias, I think that all the tips on unconscious bias are good. We need to have as many tips as possible and we need to spread the word. But one of the biggest to me is testing your own unconscious bias. If you haven't already taken the Harvard implicit bias test, you should. It's free. It's online. It's fast and easy. The test can help you understand whether or not you have unconscious bias, and believe me, you do - it's just a matter of what kind and how much, and the test will help you figure that out.
And another tool that I've recently discovered, and I don't even remember how I came across it, but it's an app on my phone. It's called Equalista. So it's spelled Equal – I. S. T. A. And I'll drop a link in the show notes listeners. It's a brand new app for your phone that provides education about gender equality and it includes education about unconscious bias. So I think that's a new tip that I'm adding to my list of favorite tips.
In addition to unconscious bias, I really liked the tips we offered about male allies. The big thing is we've all heard about Sheryl Sandberg's recommendation that women need to lean in. And I think that women are leaning in as far as we can lean in. We are going to tip over.
Deborah: If we lean in any further….
Cathy: We follow instructions well, right. And so now we need to turn around and say to our male colleagues, hey, we're leaning in, can you lean in with us? Because I think that's the only way that we're going to make change is by working together with our male allies. And we need them to lean in. What that means is we need them to be proactive, not behaving with bias towards women is not enough. We need you [male allies] to be proactive and help us convince others to disrupt the bias. We need to talk about the issues with you. So I'm excited about what we can do with male allies in Season 2. What about you, Deborah? What were your top tips? In every episode listeners, we tried to give you tips so we have a lot of them out there. So Deborah, what about you? What were your favorite tips of 2021?
Deborah: So Cathy you hit the nail on the head with the fact that we gave so many tips. This is a really hard question for me because every episode that we created is jam packed with tips. So again, this is a hard question. I'll just give you a few here that sort of stand out. But You know, I could easily choose five or 10 other tips that would also stand out to me. So in our episode on diversity and inclusion for example, which was titled Shake Not Stir, I love that title because the focus was really to create as many interactions within an organization as you can between different people. And this has to be intentional because it won't happen alone. And we also talked about never sleeping at the wheel because diversity and inclusion is not something that will magically appear. It's not something where once you get some sort of system in place, you can stop paying attention. You have to continue to have your eye on the ball as much as possible. And so one thing I have certainly tried over the last year is to think about other ways where I can interact and build teams that look very different that communicate on an ongoing basis in a variety of different ways so that there's more opportunity for interaction so that we can break down whatever barriers there are.
For unconscious bias, I completely agree that was a really important episode. One of the biases that we uncovered there highlighted women and the view of their competency or not, as the case may be. That I think was an important tip or an important bias for people to really be aware of. I know that I completely check myself on this all the time now to make sure that I am not presuming a higher level of competency with respect to a man, then I am a woman. And as you pointed out, we all have unconscious bias. And so this is something that I need to do as well. But I have found this comes up over and over again, that we are willing to grant a man a higher level of competency just based on the fact that he's a man and we need to stop doing that.
For male allies, I love the tip of asking us what we need. Ask us, ask the women what they need and how you can help so that we can have these conversations.
I also want to highlight our corporate culture episode. We had an acronym there or a Pneumonic that was SIGNPOST where we outlined all of the different things that we see within an organization, the elements that comprise a healthy organization: one that is inclusive and cultivates diverse talent. And we talked about eight or nine different things that an organization can focus on to achieve a culture that is really sound and it's a place where people can thrive. We talked about having clear communications up and down the chain and having transparency in promotion and hiring, and we talked about having a real suggestion box so that if there is an issue, employees have the opportunity to highlight the issue and also someone will respond.
So as I said, Cathy, I could go on and on about this. Those are some tips that come to mind though.
So listeners, we also want to share some of our Season 1 metrics with you. Our primary goal is and always will be providing support for you, whether that support is for one person or for many people. And we have pivoted throughout the course of this year depending on what we've heard from our listeners. In some respects, I would say the numbers don't matter to us at all, but where they do come into play is that 135 years. If we help one listener, that is great. But ideally we will steer a larger group toward parity so that we can start chipping away at that very long, 135 years. The resources to achieve parity as we talked about are out there. So how do we create a movement that makes parity reality?
Cathy: You know, Deborah, I definitely echo those sentiments that you expressed. Helping one listener is adequate but helping 1000 listeners is even better and that will help us chip away at the 135 years. And so we want to talk to you listeners about what our metrics show. We want to share this information with you because we want to be transparent, we want to build a community with you and need your help to steer us and our content in the right direction and help us grow that audience so that we can truly make an impact. So one of the major metrics that podcasters look at is the total number of downloads. This is the number of people tuning in to listen to a podcast. And as of a few days ago we had over 2000 downloads. I don't know about you Deborah, but I didn't really know what to expect in terms of engagement from listeners during Season 1 but I guarantee you I did not expect 2000 people to be you joining us by listening, commenting, and sharing our content. So thank you so much for helping us with that metric And of course we want to grow. We want to get even better during Season 2. So Deborah, what did you think? Did you expect? 2000 downloads?
Deborah: Cathy I don't think I expected any downloads.
Cathy: Ha! We knew we had some people - you had Howard and I had my mom. We knew we'd get a few.
Deborah: Ha! I'm thrilled with those numbers. But of course, like you, I want more. Right? Because I really do want there to be some change that we see in our lifetimes. So no, I'm thrilled with those numbers. I was interested to see and I shouldn't have been surprised, that our most downloaded episode to date is Episode 1: How to Fight Gender Inequality with the Parity Prescription. This episode has been published the longest. This certainly makes sense. Our next most popular episode was when we interviewed Dr. Nithila Peter. As you know, listeners Dr Peter is an Emotional Intelligence expert and we interviewed her in Episode 7: The Treasure Trove of Emotional Intelligence. And that episode has really taken off.
Cathy: It really has. And Nithila is insightful on gender issues as you listeners have undoubtedly discovered. If you haven't listened to her episode, you really should check it out. It's a very good episode to listen to. The metric that I really enjoy watching is where our viewers are coming from. So we don't know who you are unless you reach out to us. And many of you have but we can see the country where you are located. Most of you are downloading from the US but 20% of you are from other countries. After the United States, the countries with the largest downloads are India, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Deborah: And I love this too Cathy. I love having an international audience. I think that allows us to have a more robust engagement and look at these issues from a broader perspective, listeners.
We also want to give you a sneak peek into Season 2. We will be taking a break for the rest of the year. Actually, we're not taking a break behind the scenes. We've got lots going on to deliver you content. Next year, we’re going to be bringing a couple of really important topics to the fore. The first is masculinity. So Cathy I've said it. So now we have to do it.
Cathy: Yep we are going to take this on.
Deborah: Perhaps with some help from a male ally or too, we want to explore what the data shows is serious pressure on men to conform and be more masculine at work. We are interested in the negative effect of this on men as well as the fact that when men feel that pressure, they don’t step up as allies for women.
Cathy: That's something that I learned, you know, that I could have answered for my surprise for the year. I didn't realize that there was data out there showing that when men feel pressure to be more masculine, they are less willing to step up as allies for women. So, masculinity is an issue for us for that reason as well as for others. In addition to masculinity, we also plan to discuss the gender pay gap. That's something that we didn't get to this year. The gap as you know, continues to be large. And it reminds us that topics like unconscious bias have real economic impact.
Deborah: And then we're going to be introducing a new segment. We will be hosting group discussions on topics that are most important to you, including how to break the bias, which is the theme for this year's International Women's Day.
Cathy: So definitely listeners, save the date of March 8, that's International Women's Day for that discussion.
Deborah: Cathy, I'm so happy that the topic this year for international women's day is going to be break the bias, which fits exactly where we want the focus to be during Season 2. So I'm really pleased with these group discussions.
Cathy: It's almost like they called us. Did you hear me? It's almost like they called us and said, hey, Parity Podcast. What do you think the theme should be this year?
Deborah: Right! These group discussions will enable us to go deeper into the elements of the Parity Prescription as well as introduce some new topics. They will also allow us to hear the perspective of others to broaden how we all think about accelerating gender parity.
So listeners, that's a wrap as they say for Season 1. I can't believe we've made it. Thank you for going on this journey with us. We have had such an exhilarating ride with all of you and we hope you have learned as much as we have. Please know we are here to help you. Tune in while you are walking the dog or baking bread. We now have, thanks to Cathy, time stamped show notes. You can find links to resources that we mentioned in today's episode as well as links to find us on social media.
Cathy: Listeners after you drop off that baked bread to my house… Thank you for supporting Parity Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, then please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and give us a shout out on social media and with your friends. With your help, we are finding the perfect community for our ongoing discussions. We hope to connect with you again soon so that we can make progress with the Parity Prescription.
