I’ve Covered Women in the Workplace for 15 Years. Something Alarming Is Happening. |
I’ve Covered Women in the Workplace for 15 Years. Something Alarming Is Happening.
Ms. Lipman is the author of “That’s What She Said: What Men and Women Need to Know About Working Together” and other books.
“Believe women” was the defining message of the #MeToo movement. Today, there’s a new one: Erase women.
The Trump administration’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion has rolled back decades of progress for women, who now face a widening gender pay gap and narrowing employment protections. In the process, discussions about women have become a third rail, a toxic topic that is too politically charged to touch. Companies, universities, law firms and cultural institutions are all expunging references to “women” and “gender,” even under the most benign circumstances.
The Trump administration has defined “illegal D.E.I.” as “programs, initiatives or policies that discriminate, exclude or divide individuals based on race or sex.” But in practice, President Trump’s allies have questioned whether women deserve a place in the work force at all. They have blamed women for last year’s California wildfires and slammed the conservative Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a “D.E.I. hire” for a ruling they didn’t like. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is purging the military of senior female officers after complaining that the armed forces had become “effeminate.” Women’s names have disappeared from museums, parks, monuments and even the Arlington National Cemetery.
Terrified of being the administration’s next target, organizations are descending into the realm of the absurd. A researcher focused on maternal health removed references to gender-based discrimination in order to receive federal funding. A medical trade publication warned scientists to avoid words such as “female” and “women” in grant applications. After Senator Ted Cruz of Texas released a list of supposedly “woke” National Science Foundation grants last year, ProPublica found that some were included merely because their project descriptions included words like “female,” as in a female research scientist, or “diversify,” as in the biodiversity of plants.
It’s a fun-house mirror moment. For more than a decade, while reporting on women in the workplace, I’ve seen my inbox clogged with companies boasting about their work championing female employees. But most firms I contacted for this piece begged me to keep them out of it. At a recent event about working women, I asked a room of human resources executives whether their firms’ diversity efforts were continuing, and every hand shot up. When I asked who would talk about it publicly, almost every hand quickly went down. Executives say they fear not just the administration, but also right-wing activists and misogynistic trolls who might target them.
Even companies with excellent track records in promoting women don’t want to mention it. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, the sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev identified several initiatives available to all employees that can actually be more effective than D.E.I. programs in boosting outcomes for marginalized groups. They highlighted the successes of IBM’s formal mentorship programs, Walmart’s training academy and Gap’s family-friendly scheduling options. All three companies recorded increases in the percentage of women and people of color in senior roles.
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