Micro-inequities: From Road Races to the Boardroom

On Sunday I ran a 10k race in beautiful central Ontario. When I picked up my kit bag, my t-shirt was men’s size small/medium which was the smallest shirt they had. Too big. Again. Not a big deal you say. Not really. Except that I have so many men’s t-shirts from running races that do not fit because they are too big and too baggy. What’s frustrating is that in recent years more women are signing up to run races than men. In this particular race, there have been significantly more women than men participating for the eight years the race has been in existence. Why are only men’s style shirts available?

Now flip to the boardroom. Last week I was reading about the lack of progress women are making in obtaining boardroom seats.

According to Catalyst, women’s representation in leadership positions has stagnated in the U.S. Fortune 500 companies with women holding 14.6% of corporate board seats in 2006 and 15.7% in 2010. The picture in Canada isn’t any better with the number of women board seats in the Financial Post 500 going from 11.2 % in 2003 to 14% in 2009. Not a lot of progress for all the effort. While organizations like Catalyst are having a positive impact on women’s advancement and opportunities in business, improvement is painstakingly slow.

For women of colour, it’s an even more dismal picture. A recent article in the Huffington Post, describes the hurdles black women face in corporations where black women held just 1.9% of board seats in the Fortune 500 compared to 12.7% for white women (This data is from the 2010 Alliance for Board Diversity Census.) The added challenges and lack of recognition have resulted in black women saying “so long” to the corporate world and starting up successful businesses of their own.

What’s the connection between my ‘too big’ running shirt and women on boards?

The lack of women in the boardroom is a measure of the cumulative impact of micro-inequities defined by Mary Rowe of MIT as “apparently small events which are often ephemeral and hard-to-prove, events which are covert, often unintentional, frequently unrecognized by the perpetrator, which occur wherever people are perceived to be ‘different’.” Women are obtaining advanced degrees at an ever increasing rate compared to men, they work hard and take on challenging assignments but it’s never enough. Women are not getting the rewards or recognition.

My big men’s shirt is a micro-inequity that says, you are second, not important enough to provide a shirt that fits. A micro message of ‘less than’ common to women’s ears. And to my surprise this dynamic played out during the race.

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Early on I passed a very fit woman with calves of solid muscle walking up a hill. I commented that she looked so strong that I was surprised she was walking. She said she had an injury so had to take it easy on the hills. Throughout the race we were leap frogging each other and I had no doubt that she was a faster runner than me. About 1 km from the end she slowed up and was running beside me. She said she’d run in just behind me. I said, “Hey, go for it. No need to stay behind. You’re a fast runner.” Her response was “Oh no. My boss is just in front of us and I can’t pass him. He’s had a tough race and wouldn’t like it if I passed him.” I was shocked. “This is about individual performance. You’ve done so well even with your injury. C’mon! Let’s go!” “Oh no” she said again. “I couldn’t do that. He’d be upset.” I was stupefied. So I did the only thing a system disrupter like me could do. I ran hard to pass him, forcing her to make a choice between staying back behind him or coming along with me. She stayed back.

Now here’s the fascinating part. I won 3rd in my age group. Except they had me in the wrong age group so the medal they gave me didn’t have my age group on it. On a hunch I checked the results and then went up to the woman from the race and asked her what her age group was. Sure enough, she was in the age group for which they had given me the medal. I gave her the medal and said “I’m giving this to you for two reasons. One, you should have beat me and got this medal but you held back. Second, they put me in the wrong age group so in fact you legitimately won this medal. I want you to have it.” She was so delighted. Almost in awe of receiving a medal. “Oh I can’t take it” she said. “It’s yours” I told her no, it was hers, she earned it and I wanted her to have it. She was so happy to have it and yet had been willing to forfeit it for the sake of her boss. Since then I keep wondering, what is it about her boss that has her be afraid to pass him in a recreational running race?

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According to Rowe, “the cumulative, corrosive effect of many inequities, and micro-inequities have been a principal scaffolding for discrimination in the US. Micro-inequities appear to be a serious problem since much of this bias is unconscious and unrecognized—and even hard to believe when described.” True in Canada too.

Micro-inequities whether on the road to the podium or the boardroom have the same impact: women don’t receive the rewards as much as they should. And the end result is that women are creating their own spaces to excel in women-only races and women-owned businesses. Our track records in both cases are real success stories. And we’re wearing the shirts to prove it!