Do Special Opportunities Based on Gender Benefit Women — or Harm Them?

Everyone should have the same access to educational and work opportunities, regardless of their gender, race, religion, place of birth or other background circumstances. Everyone should be free to pursue their dreams without unfair prejudice and have the chance to succeed in life through effort and hard work.

Many businesses and organizations have conducted initiatives to make this vision a reality, yet inequality persists in many places. Part of the reason is that, while good intentions underlie these initiatives, many take the wrong approach. Organizations should reconsider initiatives that create or perpetuate women-only programs and special treatment for women, in the interest of creating true equality.

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Why equal opportunities matter more for women

Whenever an employee receives an opportunity due to something they can’t control — such as their gender, race, background or other circumstances — that’s a special opportunity. Conversely, equal opportunities are open to people based on things they can control, like their hard work, effort, agility, learning and dedication.

In my experience, creating special opportunities for women can actually worsen the situation for us. The existence of these programs and events communicates, perhaps without intending to, that we need remedial help and are unable to achieve those opportunities without that help or if we were put together with people of all genders.

When organizations offer special opportunities only to women, people may look at the successful women on their teams and believe they made it because of preferential treatment. Even the women themselves may wonder if they were only selected because of their gender, which disempowers them and undermines their confidence. This leads to even more issues with imposter syndrome, which many people may already be experiencing.

Many women, including myself, have never felt the need for these kinds of special opportunities. In my career, I’ve never felt my gender was held against me or that I was worth any less than a man. For women like me, the suggestion that we need support to overcome deficiencies is surprising and dismaying. 

We don’t have any deficiencies and don’t need anyone’s pity. Such initiatives can even make us feel victimized in a new way. Personally, I never even reflected on my gender being part of my identity until people started putting me on lists of “women entrepreneurs” or “female founders” and “women in tech” and similar — I have always identified as just an entrepreneur, founder and person in tech. My gender has not been a part of that identity, until society forced it upon me.

Another problem with these special opportunities is that they reproduce exclusive practices in reverse. Women-only panels, spaces or groups do the same thing that some people say men have been doing to women for ages — creating exclusive domains only for certain people.

Moreover, if an organization has a high-potential program for women, how does the high-performing man feel about not being included? Flipping the table like this isn’t fair and can generate backlash. While I do want women to succeed, it shouldn’t be at the expense of men.

Rather than swinging the pendulum all the way to the other side, I would like to find the middle way. Organizations can ensure that they honor women for their ideas and accomplishments, rather than merely for the fact that they are women.

Focus on merit

First and foremost, organizational leaders should focus on rewarding merit. To counter the possibility of subconscious bias, it’s important for organizations to have objective criteria for measuring performance. To the extent possible, these procedures should be blind, meaning that evaluators can only see the metrics or the work itself, rather than the person who produced them. Such procedures have already proven effective in choosing the best candidates to hire but should now be expanded to employee evaluation.

Once the top performers have been identified, these individuals should be celebrated as top performers without labels. If women are among the top performers, then they should be highlighted as such, not as “top-performing women.” If their performance would earn them a place of honor among the entire population, then they should be accorded that place. Women should not be regulated to a different tier — a subset that many would interpret as smaller and therefore secondary in importance.

Women need to know that, if their performance is excellent, it is excellent, and not excellent “for a woman.” We can make it even if men are among the competition. 

In other words, put us on the main stage, rather than a special women’s stage. Give us seats on the general panels instead of those on a special women’s panel. List us among the top entrepreneurs — we don’t need a special women’s list. When the main stage, the general panels and the lists of top entrepreneurs include a substantial number of women, that will normalize our contributions. Entrepreneurship, leadership and accomplishment for women are part of everyday society, not some parallel women’s world.

Honoring women the right way

Organizations should never assume anything about their employees based on their gender. Instead of telling the women on your team that they need help, ask them if they want help with anything. Some might take you up on it, but others might not perceive any need.

Additionally, don’t ask just the women if they need help — plenty of men would appreciate it, so extend the offer to them, too. Leaders should support their team members across all genders, races, backgrounds or circumstances.

This goes for domestic issues and family responsibilities, like caring for children and elders as well. The desire to strike an effective work-life balance doesn’t just apply to women. To discover what team members’ needs are, organizational leaders should have an open dialogue with all employees.

Everyone should have a seat at the table. People from traditionally marginalized groups should not be included as tokens who got a “diversity seat,” but rather welcomed as important voices whose perspective benefits the entire organization.

Along the same lines, encourage mentorship, social learning, and community in general, but between men and women in particular. For example, if you want to have a mentorship program for women, then include some male mentors. Including only female mentors would inadvertently communicate that women have nothing to learn from men or that only women are interested in mentoring their fellow female employees.

Finally, equal pay can serve as an important metric that indicates how well a given organization acknowledges women’s contributions. Pay should be tied to the position and performance, without regard for the employee’s gender. If you’re an employer, take a moment to go through your pay slips and salary data. 

Are you actually paying the same amount for the same role? Of course, different employees have different credentials, skills and levels of experience. But people in the same role with similar backgrounds and performance should not earn pay that varies by more than 5%-10%. Keep your pay grades confined to fairly tight buckets for similar levels of experience and performance.

Similarly, processes for pay raises, as well as the amount given for them, should be standardized to eliminate subconscious bias.

Women are more than their gender

Few women want to be viewed primarily through the lens of their gender. Initiatives that do this aren’t helpful to women in most cases, nor are they necessarily helpful to the world at large. People’s genders have nothing to do with their performance at work. That’s why giving women special treatment just for being women is a mistake.