In the days leading up to International Women’s Day, Linda Senden and Mirella Visser were invited by the Dutch Social and Economic Council, an important stakeholder, to share first findings of RE-WIRING at the “Broad prosperity, a gender-inclusive perspective” event. With some 250 business and social leaders attending in “the dome”, a famous venue in The Hague (Omniversum Museum), our slides were proudly presented in “the universe”. An awesome experience! Sharing the stage Senden and Visser in a duo-presentation emphasized the complexity of the various threads of the symbolic bird cage, holding back gender equality and women’s equal uptake of leadership positions.
Currently just 8 percent of CEOs are women. The authority gap is the mother of all gender gaps. One of the better practices we presented was the “opt out-“ mechanism for the selection procedures for leadership positions. This involves including all talents for the selection pool and not only the candidates that put themselves forward. The current “opt in” mechanism perpetuates gender inequality since it does not take into account the different ways women present themselves or are being considered for these positions. Instead of women “being fixed” to adhere to male standards and norms, we need to change the system itself by respecting, valuing and including women’s standards. Current procedures, policies and instruments need to be transformed into gender-sensitive ones. Fixing the procedures instead of fixing the women by rewiring our institutions.
At the World Cafe tables after the presentation various participants shared their experiences and examples of transforming organizations. They will be included in RE-WIRINGs upcoming publications, as valuable contributions of our stakeholders.
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