Reflect on Your Uniform of Privilege, and Other Actions for Allies
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. Reflect on your uniform of privilege
Did you notice a typo in last week’s newsletter? In case you missed it, I wrote, “the uninformed leading the uniformed” instead of “leading the uninformed.” 🤦♀️
When Jeff Bivens spotted the mistake, he took it as inspiration to write a short essay. With permission, I’m sharing it with you today.
“Thanks to the Better Allies newsletter, I am gradually and irrevocably opening my eyes to the great privilege that I am so lucky to have been born with. I was born a white, cis, hetero, able-bodied male, from a middle-class family in the United States of America. In other words, I was born wearing the uniform of privilege. This uniform protects me from systemic bias while enabling me to play bystander and perpetrator roles, albeit often unconsciously, in the daily struggle for social justice that surrounds me.
Through study, practice, and reflection of each week’s 5 Ally Actions, I am learning to recognize the vast privilege that my uniform represents and the profound responsibility that comes with wearing it. I am learning to understand why allyship is so vital for improving social systems. I am learning how to behave like an upstander and wield my privilege to effect much-needed change. I am learning to ally with people who were born exposed and vulnerable in a society governed largely by uninformed, uniformed, fortunate people.
Thank you for helping catalyze the transformation of a society that enables blind uniformity and systemic privilege to one that honors open authenticity, protects diversity, establishes equality, upholds dignity and restores the fundamental responsibility of pledging ‘liberty and justice for all.’”
Let’s all pause and reflect on our uniform of privilege. Need some ideas? Check out my list of 50 Potential Privileges in the Workplace.
2. Mention the women you’re honoring (not just the men doing the honoring)
Bristol Cathedral is addressing a past mistake. Back in 1994, they installed a plaque announcing:
“In this Cathedral
on 12 March 1994
Barry Rogerson
Bishop of Bristol
Ordained the first
Women as Priests in
The Church of England”
As I spotted on Twitter, the Cathedral has announced a project to replace the plaque:
“Removal of the existing plaque to celebrate the ordination of women, and replacement with a new plaque celebrating the same thing. The reason that the original plaque is being replaced is that it did not mention any of the women who were ordained. Instead it mentioned the men that ordained them. The new plaque has the names of all those ordained on it. The original and new plaque are both made of Welsh Slate. The new plaque will be slightly bigger than the old plaque.”
Check out these photos of the old and new plaques.
Folks, when honoring women, be sure to mention them, and not just the men who showed up to do the honoring.
3. Don’t just add women and stir
In the Harvard Business Review article How Bias Against Women Persists in Female-Dominated Workplaces, researchers Amy Diehl, Amber L. Stephenson, and Leanne M. Dzubinski examined how even in industries with more women than men, bias can be built into systems. By looking at four industries with more women than men workers (law, higher ed, faith-based nonprofits, and health care), they uncovered themes of bias. As they wrote,
“It’s been thought that once industries achieve gender balance, bias will decrease and gender gaps will close. Sometimes called the ‘add women and stir’ approach, people tend to think that having more women present is all that’s needed to promote change. But simply adding women into a workplace does not change the organizational structures and systems that benefit men more than women.”
The authors offered many suggestions to reduce the bias, including one that is highly relevant for organizations embracing hybrid remote and in-person workplaces: Measure success by goals versus time spent in the office or online.
4. Disrupt on-site favoritism
In addition to measuring success by goals, let’s look at other ways to disrupt “on-site favoritism.”
In Don’t Lose the Democratizing Effect of Remote Work, researchers Joan C. Williams, Rachel M. Korn, and Mikayla Boginsky point out how mishandling the transition to hybrid work threatens to reinforce social inequalities and jeopardize companies’ DEI efforts. As they wrote:
“On-site favoritism is when employees who work on-site get more advancement opportunities than employees who don’t. If more women and people of color choose hybrid schedules, and more men and white people choose to be fully on-site, the results are predictable. Research shows that on-site favoritism will predictably happen unless organizations take steps to ensure it doesn’t.”
To avoid on-site favoritism, the researchers recommend tracking who gets career-enhancing assignments. Look for patterns to see whether those who work on-site are favored over those who aren’t. Also, pay attention to which demographics get these assignments. And then take steps to reduce any bias.
They also suggest holding meetings as either all-remote or all in-person to be more equitable.
5. Avoid using “all-hands” (again)
In one of my newsletters last month, I wrote that pay equity is not a given and recommended:
“If your company hasn’t already instituted a pay equity review, you’ve got work to do. Do you have the power to make this happen for your team — or, better yet, for your larger function or business unit? If not, consider asking about it at your next all-hands meeting.”
Several subscribers reached out to kindly remind me of my previous advice to replace the phrase “all-hands meeting” with a more inclusive alternative such as “all company” or forum”. Suffice it to say that I was a bit upset at myself for not following my own guidance.
Yes, some habits are hard to break. Regardless, I pledge to keep learning and do better.
Many thanks to all of you who help hold me accountable.
That’s all for this week. I wish you strength and safety as we all move forward.
— Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of Better Allies®
Copyright © 2022 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.
I wrote this article in what is now called Burlingame, California. It is on Ohlone territory.
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