International Women’s Day just went by. And this time, LinkedIn to celebrate women’s views, came up with its first-of-its- kind list of thought leaders, who with their experiences, and thought processes are creating dialogues centered around gender equity, in and out of offices.
The list honors women who are thought-drivers and are trying to make an impact with their work. They are openly talking about differences in pay on the basis of gender, sexual harassment at workplaces, maternity breaks, breaking biases about women, etc. The list is based on the content that has been posted on LinkedIn by women, thereby inspiring others and creating room for thought on pertinent issues.
Let’s take a look at these 15 thought leaders and their views, that are making the right noise.
1. Aditi Gupta
Co-founder and Managing Partner of Menstrupedia, Aditi Gupta voices her opinion of having maternal and parental leaves along with paid period leaves as basic and compulsory. Similarly, gender sensitization training should be an important part of the training process.
2. Keerti Purswani
A software developer and content creator by profession, Keerti asserts that every gender has a different set of societal problems that they have to face. Hence, providing equal opportunities to both is of immense importance. Offering flexible schedules to employees and using gender-inclusive language may seem like petty solutions, but they go a long way in tackling gender-parity problems at workplace.
3. Krusha Sahjwani Malkani
Her thoughts about the office disparities faced by women on embracing motherhood are garnering attention. Women tend to lose talent around this important time of their lives, and even if the ones who choose to keep going with their work, tend to face growth and pay problems. So, it becomes imperative on part of the employers to provide maternal and equally important paternal leaves.
4. Mitali Nikore
An economist and founder of Nikore Associates, Mitali’s voices her opinion on diversity, equity and inclusion priorities of corporates and organizations. According to her, importance should be given to women in making DEI related decisions, use data driven DEI techniques and also place an action-oriented gender-inclusivity framework for implementation.
5. Diya Kapur Misra
A DEI champion, Diya feels that an inclusive culture should be developed by role modelling, and also focus on the right metrics. It is this combination that would work wonders.
6. Nishtha Anand
A strategy professional and author, Nishtha writes about how organizations can include in KPI for managerial positions, gender and inclusion targets in hiring and training and development too.
7. Dr Ruha Shadab
Dr Ruha, the founder of LedBy Foundation, urges people to ask questions like are certain communities or genders overrepresented? This is the first step towards problem identification.
8. Olivia Deka
According to Olivia, founder & CEO of She for Change, it is important to support young female employees and help them rise through ranks in office, if you want to solve the gender gap problem. Especially in certain areas like politics and technology where women are often underrepresented.
9. Neha Singh
Neha is the founder of Womoneysta. She says, that gender equity can be promoted through Hiring, Retaining and through Role Models. She stresses on these three factors in her write-ups.
10. Pallavi Pareek
Pallavi, founder of Ungender, stresses on a 3 As approach- Authentic, Acknowledge and Accept. Being authentic about including gender equity, acknowledging that any dedicated effort requires time and money and acceptance of this not being a social activity.
11. Shashwati P
Shashwati P, a diversity and inclusion consultant mentions that in organizations, equity and equality are interchangeably used, while both of them are actually different. Companies must encourage the creation of a fair environment, though fair does not always mean “same for all”
12. Surabhi Yadav
The founder of Sajhe Sapne asserts that if people are serious about gender equity, benchmarking should change from diversity and inclusion to belongingness and ownership.
13. Virginia Sharma
The Head of Marketing, Google Cloud India says that the more balance we achieve within ourselves, regardless of our sex, the more we can contribute to gender equity in the workplace.
14. Sohini Bhattacharya
Breakthrough India’s CEO says, “Ensure that voices of all genders are captured in your policy development. Let POSH training not be just a tick mark in your organisation, but do follow the necessary legal guidelines to have the complaints committee etc set up. Talk about the issue in townhalls and other places where employees are present. Give longer paternity leave to men so that they get to participate in the child-rearing process.”
15.Shaili Chopra
Founder of SheThePeople.TV asserts “Organisations must make gender equity a priority for the CEO and founder. We need to drive the equality agenda from where business decisions are taken. Women deserve equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work. When a CEO recognises that women and men can navigate, create and perform similarly, they see it makes good business sense.”
