Tag: gender quotas

Why Journalists Should Be Forced to Quote More Women

Posted on by Shari Graydon

It’s often seen as a dirty word, and I usually avoid using it. So when Lisa Kimmel, the general manager of Edelman PR agency recently invited me to debate the merits of imposing a gender “quota” on journalists as a means of increasing the number of women quoted in the news, I balked.

Even though the aim of the social enterprise I lead is explicitly to amplify women’s voices, and I’m convinced that doing so could reshape society for the better, I replied, “Not even I would argue that!”

But faced with the opportunity to provoke discussion in a public forum and cross swords with a journalist famous for her ability to elicit strong reactions, I reconsidered. For the sake of debate, I was willing to risk knee jerk dismissals and engage in the intellectual exercise – even if it did only mean a few minutes at the Rotman School of Management microphone.

Interestingly, the process of building the argument changed my mind. Anticipating the likely objections of the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente in order to refute them convinced me of the merits of what I originally deemed an outlandish and indefensible suggestion. I’ll tell you why in a minute. But first, let’s get a few of her arguments out of the way.

Not one to let nuance get in the way of hyperbole, Ms. Wente declared quotas “the most dreadful thing in the world.”

I didn’t have the opportunity to offer some comparative alternatives at the time, but most of the many journalists I know, given a choice between say, being gang raped, sold into slavery, or compelled to quote a few more female sources – even if it did take longer to find them – would happily opt for an imposed quota.

Especially since, as the Globe columnist herself made clear, “We’re not lacking for strong female role models.” In the next breath, however, she insisted on the existence of a mythical “best person” who responsible journalists must seek to quote above all others for any given article.

This is a disingenuous claim. For the vast majority of news stories that benefit from insights offered by an authoritative source, there is no single “best person.” Virtually every event or announcement covered by the media could be given valuable context and analysis by a number of people with informed opinions about related issues or likely consequences. They won’t all give the same context and analysis, and indeed, believing that one individual is necessarily “the best” implies a disturbingly narrow perspective on the potential implications of any given story.

So here’s why a quota on quoting women might actually make sense:

1. BETTER, RICHER ANALYSIS

A raft of respected research makes clear: whether you’re talking about scientific research, corporate governance, or social policy, including the insights and ideas of competent women alongside men leads to greater innovation and competitiveness, improved client responsiveness and better financial performance. More perspectives translate into more empathy and greater collaboration.

Mixed gender teams develop safer drugs and make more ethical decisions. Not because women are better than men, but because they often think about and approach things differently, and diversity is a demonstrated strength. (You don’t have to take an advocate’s word for it: the studies have been funded by independent research councils, conducted by esteemed academics, and embraced by bank presidents convinced that to get the best talent, you have to expand your recruitment pool.

So given the critical role played by the news media, and the complex social, economic and environmental challenges they’re tasked with telling us about, we’d be smart to broaden the perspectives we invite to weigh in and ensure we more often seek the views of people (OK, women) whose brains are apparently wired to consider consequences. The downstream benefits are likely to include more family-friendly policies, stronger communities, and reduced conflict – everywhere.

2. MEN NEED A BREAK:

We know that smart women chronically under-estimate their abilities and, in so doing, often decline to pontificate when given the chance. National Post columnist Jonathan Kay explained this by noting that most women just aren’t arrogant enough to think they have all the answers. Which, you know, seems like a reasonable position for pretty much everybody to adopt.

Rotman debate audience enjoying feminist humour.

“Do we need to point out that being a microphone hog doesn’t always lead to value-added commentary? That we’d benefit from a little more Lang and a lot less O’Leary?”

In fact, responding to the new book about the female confidence gap, New York Times columnist David Brooks recently cited psychological research suggesting that overconfidence is actually the more serious problem (think 2009 financial meltdown). He argued for an approach that would inject women’s tendency for “self-policing into the wider culture”, and asked, “How can each of us get a better mixture of “female” self-doubt and “male” self-assertion?

Centuries of entrenched sexism deemed women intellectually feeble and emotionally volatile. Ignoring for a minute who was responsible for perpetuating such attitudes, think of the pressure that put on men to be the go-to guys on almost everything. It’s past time to relieve them of the responsibility of having to know it all.

3. A BROADER DEFINITION OF NEWS:

Now, it’s true that quoting more women might make us pay attention to other things. But would that be so wrong?

What if we focused less on hockey fights and more on health research? If so-called “women’s issues” got front-page treatment – even when the women being profiled weren’t wearing bikinis? If some of what’s currently deemed “soft” news and relegated to the life section were accorded more importance? If we stopped devoting detailed front page coverage to misogynist murderers and more to the social context that contributes to creating them in the first place?

4. WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE:

Some reporters and producers say they’d like to quote women more often – but how many are really investing significant effort in expanding their pool of sources? Doing so requires creativity, resourcefulness and time, and when you’re on deadline, it’s easier to default to the usual suspects. So I think it’s fair to say that despite claims made to the contrary, nobody is doing “everything they can.”

If they were, they would be calling more of the thousand women Informed Opinions has worked with across the country. Women with deep knowledge on a wide variety of topics who are eager to share what they know…Women with distinguished careers and respected reputations who hold PhDs in economics, political science and marine biology, and boast decades of experience in business, immunology and criminal law…

As the successful imposition of quotas in the academic world and relating to board appointments have shown, if we were to compel reporters to start tracking the ratio of women to men they interview, they would somehow manage to find and interview more expert women.

And that would be demonstrably good for all of us.

NOTE: Edelman has posted a 3-minute video from the event (focusing mostly on Lisa Kimmel’s introduction, and including very brief rebuttals by Ms. Wente and me onto Youtube here.

Women on boards to counter “affirmative action plan for men”?

Posted on by Shari Graydon

The following op ed was published in the Ottawa Citizen 23 September 2013. Constance Sugiyama, pictured at right, a respected mergers and acquisition lawyer and honorary patron of Informed Opinions, serves on a number of boards, and is one of thousands of Canadian women qualified to do so and capable of making a significant contribution.

Here’s an interesting contradiction: the business mantra “What gets measured gets done” is universally understood as an effective way to monitor many aspects of performance.

And yet when it’s suggested the maxim be applied to measuring the representation of women on corporate boards, suddenly the value of quantification becomes tainted by the apparently dreaded concepts of gender quotas.

This may explain why the Ontario Securities Commission is taking such a restrained approach to attempting to address Canada’s embarrassingly poor performance in pursuit of greater diversity on private sector boards.

In June, the OSC released a consultation paper inviting submissions on its exceptionally reasonable proposal to require public companies to start reporting the number of women on their boards and the efforts they’re making to increase their representation.

Why is this important?

Because a raft of business research published by prestigious business schools and management consulting agencies has made it clear: when competent women are included at the executive level, and on boards of big companies, it leads to better decisions. (And given Canada’s lamentable standing on the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness and innovation rankings — 14th and 25th respectively — we could clearly use the talent boost.)

Some companies acted on this intelligence years ago, and as a result, have realized competitiveness and profitability gains. Meanwhile banks — forced to embrace greater diversity by federal regulators — have now become vocal advocates.

Ed Clark, president and CEO of TD Bank Group, commented publicly on the perils of failing to draw on a larger pool of candidates last year. He rhetorically questioned how he could attract the best people possible and build a better bank if he excluded all women, visible minorities, gay, lesbian and transgendered people, restricting himself to less than 30 per cent of the population.

And yet 43 per cent of the largest publicly traded Canadian companies listed on the TSC still have zero female directors on their boards. Another 28 per cent have exactly one woman, meaning less than one-third have made any serious attempt to benefit from expanding their search to include the other half of the population. Currently, only 14.5 per cent of public company directors in Canada are women.

Investors, are you paying attention?

In fact, shareholder activist Carl Icahn — not your typical feminist advocate — made this point in a roundabout way a few years ago on his blog. He argued that the old boys’ network approach to recruiting board members from the least threatening guys in one’s network was leading to the “survival of the un-fittest.”

The truth is, board appointments have been effectively implementing a de facto affirmative action program for straight, white men of a certain age and class for decades. More than 90 per cent of men serving on FTSE 100 company boards were waved into their positions without even undergoing an interview. So, far from reflecting the kind of meritocracy that might be threatened by quotas, the current system is more likely to entrench mediocrity and group think.

The OSC might address this by extending the tracking beyond the boards to include the nominating committees that work to populate them.

This would not only increase the committees’ ability to identify a wider variety of qualified candidates, but also make it more likely that some of those selected would reflect the more diverse skills, experiences and perspectives desired.

Another critical step would be to insist that corporate boards adopt term limits for service.

Already accepted as best practice in the non-profit sector, limits would ensure renewal and permit companies to better adapt to the rapidly changing global economy. (A recent survey conducted by leadership recruitment firm Korn Ferry determined that more corporate directors in Canada have passed their 71st birthdays than are female.)

Many governments around the world have taken a much more interventionist approach to increasing board diversity.

Some have even adopted gender quotas. In Italy and France, companies and directors failing to meet government targets for female membership (30 per cent and 40 per cent respectively) face fines and risk having their board elections nullified.

Belgium has dictated that all new appointments must be women until companies reach the 30 per cent target, while Norwegian companies achieved the imposed 40 per cent quota in 2009, only seven years after it was introduced.

So Canadian corporate laggards should be on their knees in gratitude that the OSC is being so cautious.

Its approach seeks merely to boost transparency and encourage companies to work harder to get the best talent onto their boards by expanding their recruitment pool to include women.

On the other hand, the Commission is also welcoming public input. Many individuals and organizations are preparing convincing arguments as to why the incremental gains achieved by the previous go-slow approach are folly in the context of a 21st-century globally competitive business environment.

Let’s hope their voices provoke a more robust response.

Shari Graydon is the founder of Informed Opinions, which trains expert women to share their ideas and analyses through the media.