Women are beyond valuable in any workplace. We know this. Businesses are making strides to show this more. But still, women aren’t getting as much as they deserve in the workforce in more ways than one.
Mckinsey & Company’s 2022 Women in the Workplace report revealed that women, especially women of color, are still significantly underrepresented in corporate America, and in particular, senior leadership positions.
The same report also stated, “For every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted.
And we can’t forget about the gender pay gap, with women earning a steady .80 to .83 for every dollar a man makes. Or how 60% of women report enduring unwanted sexual advances, attention, or conversation in the workplace.
These challenges make it difficult for women to enter high-paying, male-dominated fields. For example, there are much, much fewer tradeswomen than men in skilled trades — compromising less than 4% of skilled trades like construction, carpentry, and equipment operators. This figure is even though, on average, tradeswomen receive higher assessment scores on average than their male counterparts.
All of these facts about women in the workplace point to quite a few things. But our top conclusions are:
- Workplaces and organizations need to do much better in supporting, protecting, and valuing women.
- Women may need to step their game up in terms of advocating for themselves in the workplace.
This article will explore the latter. Those interested in becoming stronger self-advocates, more confident, and capable of creating a working arrangement tailored to them should keep reading.
What It Means to Advocate for Yourself in the Workplace
A simple definition of self-advocacy is representing yourself. To put this into context, you represent yourself by effectively communicating your needs, standing up for yourself, and unapologetically conveying your interests, desires, perspectives, ideas, and plans.
Self-advocacy in the workplace is simply doing all of the above at work. Women should strive to do this more in their respective companies to help make some headway on the inequalities and injustices mentioned above.
More importantly, you need to advocate for yourself more for what it can do for you. For one, self-advocacy in the workplace starts with understanding what you need and directly asking for it. When you do this, you take better care of yourself and build healthier habits that support your long-term holistic health.
What Self-Advocacy Looks Like in the Workplace
Whether you’re dealing with a workplace injury or too high of a workload, the specifics of advocacy will look different for you than they will for the woman sitting next to you. However, generally, self-advocacy can look like this:
Setting expectations in the recruiting process
Most women start advocating for themselves once they’re hired. But a more thoughtful strategy is starting your advocacy in the recruiting process. The earlier a company knows about your needs, the faster you can find out if they’re willing to accommodate them.
This is important because the last thing we need is another woman working at a company that doesn’t care about her. So, set the tone of self-advocacy in the recruiting process. Examples of this include:
- Being transparent about your availability;
- Being honest about disabilities in the application;
- Negotiating parental leave;
- Discussing motherhood and other elements unique to women as strengths.
Taking on a meaningful, manageable workload
It’s so challenging for women to move up in most workplaces and land leadership roles that many bury themselves in heavy workloads and menial tasks to prove their worth. Unfortunately, burnout finds them just as quickly.
Your worth in the workplace isn’t attached to a heavy workload or how many tasks you take on that your male counterparts don’t want to do. Don’t be afraid to demand work that’s meaningful to you and comes in a manageable workload.
Setting boundaries with the people you work with
Whether they do it willingly or not, many women become the nurturers of the workplace. They take care of everyone, listen and give great advice, carry the mental load of furthering the company culture, and put themselves on the back burner.
If you want to be this woman in your workplace and can do so, great. But if you don’t, that’s great too. You don’t have to be the caretaker in the workplace just because you’re a woman.
Set boundaries with the people you work with to ensure your professional relationships are healthy and stable. This could look like:
- Allowing relationships to unfold naturally;
- Asking people to ask you if it’s okay to vent to you before they do;
- Letting coworkers know you don’t discuss your personal life at work;
- Being firm about your discomfort with a coworker pursuing you romantically.
If someone continuously disregards your boundaries, speak up about it.
Supporting yourself and others
Despite the “self” moniker, no woman is alone in self-advocacy. Finding support can help women to enforce their boundaries and speak up.
Organizations with the aim of supporting women in male-dominated fields, ranging from construction to tech, can protect you when you have to speak truth to power. These organizations provide resources for advocacy, networking for career building, and many other options that help support women in the workplace.
Speaking up when something is wrong
Many women refrain from speaking up when something is wrong. This could be because they’re afraid of losing their jobs, experiencing retaliation, or being pigeonholed in the workplace. As legitimate as these concerns are, you have to speak up anyway.
Advocating for yourself isn’t always comfortable. But it’s always necessary, whether it’s comfortable or not. So, take action when something isn’t right. Don’t feel like you have to confront someone on your own. Instead, use the human resources department for support and go from there.
Advocating for yourself in the workplace isn’t easy for any woman. However, the more women who brave the battle, the better the workforce will be for women generations after.
