It's up to each of us to fight for what we want, ask for what we deserve.
For decades, International Women's Day (IWD) has been a celebration of women, empowerment, and the ever-long quest for equality. This year's IWD theme is to "Be Bold for Change." In being bold, IWD has asked men and women alike to commit to one of the following pledges:
On the other hand, on this day we also have A Day Without a Woman, a movement from the Women's March on Washington. This cause, described as a one-day demonstration of economic solidarity, asks that supporters do the following:
There's a stark contrast between the two movements and the requests made of its supporters -- A Day Without a Woman even provides templates for supporters to use to notify employers they will not be coming to work, and out-of-office messages, inclusive of "For anything urgent, please contact [Insert name of male colleague covering your work, if applicable]."
While both movements are well-intended, the aforementioned contrast represents the significant, and often concerning, dichotomy when it comes to the fight for women's equality. I want to challenge bias and inequality and forge women's advancement, but can I do that if I am refusing to come to work? And with the pay equality issue, is encouraging women to skip a day of pay or put their jobs in jeopardy going to achieve the change we, allegedly, want to see in the world?
My focus today is how this dichotomy is represented in the information security community. It's a hot topic in a male-dominated industry that also has a lot of loud female voices. With the sexual harassment and career stifling law suits and public disclosures at Uber and other organizations ramping up in the last few weeks, it's creating even more heated discussion.
Also: Women's share of Microsoft jobs falls again, so it's tying top pay to diversity | Women in the workplace: A $12 trillion opportunity | Navigating the visa minefield and the lack of women | Women in Tech: Mind the gender gap
I've been privy to many conversations about women. As many of my friends serve on boards, write about feminist movements, or have started equality and diversity organizations, I often feel torn. In some conversations, I'm told that I am an example because I've held executive positions in many high-profile or high-growth security companies. In other conversations, I'm told that my opinion is moot because, while I deal with a lot of the same issues, I am not a technical contributor to the industry so my example does not count.
No. The issues are the same, regardless of the roles that we are in: inappropriate comments from colleagues or other industry members; blatant sexual harassment that threatens your job or career; inequality in pay; and the seeming growing problem of surreptitious behavior from threatened male peers and leaders who strive to damage job status, career, or even reputation.
But this leads to another problem -- gender inequality is not always a male vs. female dynamic. Women are notoriously awful to each other, as shown over and over again in research and pop culture references alike. It's a slippery slope in the workplace, and in many cases, some women find it harder to work for a woman than for a man, because the oppression is not as overt or easily qualifiable.
OK, here's my plea for the information security community today, and all days, in how to address and consider women's equality issues. While this article, and this day, focuses on women, some of these considerations are just as relevant when dealing with different types of equality challenges. And, truly, these apply not only to information security, but to all industries
This is my plea to all members of the information security industry in how they deal with each other in the workplace. On IWD, or even if your thing is A Day Without a Woman, remember that we should stand up for each other -- regardless of the day, regardless of our role, regardless of what makes us diverse. It's time for us to evolve, set aside the "booth babe" debate and look at the real issues that cause those outcomes, and have tough discussions about what we as individuals, and as leaders, regardless of gender, are responsible for doing to support ourselves and others.