What Actions Could I Take to Be Responsible for Gender Equality and Equity?

International women’s day is always an opportunity to pause and ask ‘what actions am I taking or could I take to be responsible for gender equality’?

This week has provided me with a unique opportunity because on Monday I chaired the project committee for the revision of ISO 20121. 

In 2012 when the standard was launched I was regularly introduced as the ‘youngest female’ to chair a standard. The representatives involved from the national standard bodies and the liaisons (eg the global industry associations) were majority men and this was an unquestioned norm. 

11 years on and ISO provide guidance for technical committees on creating gender responsive standards and in our first meeting I requested we report on the number of women attending the meeting. On Monday the attendees for the project committee meeting to revise ISO 20121 were 60% women. The gathering of the data and the representation of the data in binary terms is not perfect but as chair of ISO 20121 I am proud to be able to see evidence of positive change.

In the lead up to the meeting I found myself thinking of my own experience with what I would term feminine and masculine traits and how they are used within the meeting environment. Masculine traits such as strength and power can be found in meetings when people voice objections without offering any potential middle ground. Feminine traits such as empathy and compassion can be found in meetings when people listen more than they speak. In a longer blog post I could write about the pros and cons of these traits, how traditional meeting formats may rely on one more than another but this post is short so I will stick to the point that in the role of chair I had the ability to create opportunities for everyone to listen with curiosity and voice what they would take away from the meeting. The obvious ,yet personally surprising, learning for me, was how important hearing everyone’s takeaway from the meeting was.  This International Women’s Day I am asking myself how can I be responsible for enabling equality by changing the way I chair meetings so everyones voice can be heard and could a focus on the feminine traits such as empathy, collaboration and listening be the key to that.