Interrupting gender bias through meeting culture | Selena Rezvani | TEDxHartford

Selena Rezvani is a recognized consultant, researcher, and author on women and the workplace. Known for her award-winning column in The Washington Post on gender inclusion, as well as her books Pushback and The Next Generation of Women Leaders, she presents how to disrupt gender bias through meeting culture - using illuminating concepts like psychological safety and workplace ‘mirror-tacracy.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

[@cherylrice7768]

Such an important and compelling talk. Thank you for giving us tools to make a meaningful difference in meetings and beyond. Excellent!

[@sarahweise_]

Such an important message! Thank you for this talk.

[@AshSeddeek]

Great job Selena; a very important dynamic to design for inclusion and equality in our daily interactions...

[@TeamGoogan]

The percentage of women Fortune 500 CEOs is roughly 5%. Don't overlook other professions with much smaller percentages of women in the workforce. According to the US DOL women only make up 2.9% of all construction laborers, 1.8% of carpenters, and 1.5% of auto mechanics. You can't demand equality of outcome for only the areas you desire and disregard the rest.

[@gillcoles3378]

Men do: percentage of men in childcare 6.3%. Percentage of male nurses 8.1%.

[@HebaruSan]

No case history for the "quiet chips" incident, just insinuation. What if that was thought of by women at one of these woman-promoting meetings as a way to prioritize women in product design? Notably that company has a female CEO!

[@DrJoshuaPerry]

You’re not wrong on most of these points, however, you started out with misleading data, whether or. It is was intentional...women are more educated than ever, but they primarily choose education paths that do not lead them into those CEO and boardroom positions, they learn about humanities and human care related topics rather than businesses and engineering topics. The only education path they dominate in the C suite is finance. If you want to change the makeup, then change the education, however, I think you’ll find that most women have no interest in those topics, which is why we are where we are. I consult directly with both a CEO who is a woman and a CEO named John, and both are equally capable, however, their focus and interests reflect their priorities, and one is focused on people and the other on enterprise. This is not gender bias, it’s their own choice of what they want to pursue in life, and explains our current situation much better than the nonexistent bias you perceive. No one is acting in a way to keep women out of business, they simply tend to choose other paths.

[@lorrygeewhizzbang9521]

Women are also discouraged from these fields. I know personally. I went to college for civil engineering and was treated differently and badly by my educators. I changed careers/ education path ending up as a ships engineer. I watched how my path was full of people standing in my way yet the first boy with a mild interest and no knowledge would be escorted around like a gift from God. And that leaves out all the nonsense women have to deal with at home. Unsupportive husband's who expect lots of encouragement for their dreams but when the rolls are reversed we get whining and complaints "why aren't you home sooner?" "I can't wait around for you" "why do I have to go to that dinner, there's a game on" " I can't help with the kids/laundry/ house chores because...." I had a future boss try to hire my husband on my interview!! I designed our home and the draughtsman thought it a great idea to leave my name off it and just put down my mates. If you were to walk a mile in our shoes you might not walk again.

[@sharminarif6082]

while this is generally true, this is a reductionist analysis of the issue of women's voices/capabilities being sidelined in workplaces dominated by men, when a lot of them are at exactly the same professional level as the women. Women's voices are immediately interpreted as entitled, smug, or self aggrandising by men even when they're voicing level headed, clinical points of views. Lots of organisations such as marketing agencies have women employees but the culture is so pervasively male-centric that male colleagues are often given more air time or are congratulated more during meetings for simple, common sense things that women don't even consider voicing because theyre not acknowledged by the male bosses. This problem is not a myth and should be observed more by men.

[@DrJoshuaPerry]

@@sharminarif6082 Okay, then let’s start with making sure that we have 50% of bricklayers and portojohn cleaners as women and see where this goes. Women only want equality when it suits their preferences.

[@sharminarif6082]

@@DrJoshuaPerry I know what you're getting at, I've also heard jordan peterson talk about this at length, but this is not the response to what I said. I said women being sidelined is not a myth, there are other reasons at play apart from merely women wanting forced equality in the workplace. I'm talking about workplaces where men and women have reached at the same positions and are being treated differently due to internalised prejudice against women. If you think that it doesn't exist at all, then there's no point of even talking.

[@5040115]

Choosing CEOs from a finance background is also a bias. This bias has led to all these financial recessions we have seen in the last couple of decades. Maybe leading though the perspective of the keeping people happy is better for our economy long term. So for me the answer is not to encourage women to study more finance but considering that there is more than maximising profit when thinking about long term sucess.

[@JD-sb4qe]

So women should manipulate buisnesses to pay their friends more excluding their friends skill

[@JD-sb4qe]

Just why? Why? this is sick crash the economy over a myth that came from unclearly reviewed study reports