Christine Boston: Foreign.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 178 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: Breaking Barriers for Women. And I have the absolute honour and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to welcome Christine Boston. Christine is a
Joanne Lockwood: lifelong gender equality advocate and leadership specialist
Joanne Lockwood: who's on a mission to build inclusive cultures that empower
Joanne Lockwood: everyone to thrive. When I asked Christine to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, she said that it is turning strategic vision
Joanne Lockwood: into inclusive purpose led action. Hello, Christine,
Joanne Lockwood: welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Hi, Jo. Nice to see you. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: and we were just chatting in the green room just now and we first connected
Joanne Lockwood: on LinkedIn in 2018, so that's. We've been
Joanne Lockwood: stalking each other for seven years. That's a while. A long time.
Christine Boston: Indeed. And did I pick up on the fact you're
Joanne Lockwood: based in Wales, is that right? I am in Wales, yeah. Just outside
Christine Boston: Cardiff. Lovely city. I've
Joanne Lockwood: spent many a night out in the. Near the
Joanne Lockwood: Wetherspoons area. The Prince of Wales, is it the. That's the one, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: In my younger days, when I was a bit more of a party animal than
Joanne Lockwood: I am now. Great part of town. So
Joanne Lockwood: the kids are breaking up for Easter soon, aren't they? Is that right?
Christine Boston: They are, yeah. One more week of school and then, yeah, they'll be home
Christine Boston: for two weeks. Wow. Wow. What are you gonna do with
Joanne Lockwood: them? Well, probably avoid the rain. We've had really good weather all week, you know,
Christine Boston: in the run up to the Easter holiday. So that means it's definitely going to
Christine Boston: be a wet one. So I'm sure we'll be, you know, doing lots of soft
Christine Boston: play and finding some indoor activities to keep them
Christine Boston: occupied instead of letting them run around outside. Well, you. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: the introduction. I said this is the title is Breaking Barriers for Women
Joanne Lockwood: and I realise and know that that's a huge passion of you around
Joanne Lockwood: gender equity and equality for all gen and calling
Joanne Lockwood: out some of the constructs that are there. So what got you into what you're
Joanne Lockwood: doing? And, yeah, give us a bit of background as to why you
Joanne Lockwood: do that. Yeah, so I've been a gender equality activist
Christine Boston: since I was about 6 or 7. And I know that always kind of
Christine Boston: sounds really strange, you know, how is that possible? But actually,
Christine Boston: I grew up in a Catholic family, so we were at church every week.
Christine Boston: I went to a Catholic school and it was about that age that, you know,
Christine Boston: as a girl, I realised there were things that I would be told I couldn't
Christine Boston: do, you know, just for that reason, no other good reason, just because I'm
Christine Boston: a girl. So, you know, we were kind of, as girls, we'd sit and think,
Christine Boston: well, that's not fair, you know, why can't we do that? And that's kind of
Christine Boston: where it started. And then I was a child of the 80s as
Christine Boston: well, so, you know, that was a really big time for women's empowerment. And I
Christine Boston: don't think, you know, there was any way really of avoiding having that
Christine Boston: influence me in my household as well. My mum was the main earner,
Christine Boston: but we'd still have salespeople, people ringing the house
Christine Boston: and not wanting to speak to her, but wanting to speak to my dad or,
Christine Boston: you know, if they're coming round, you know, can they come round when my dad's
Christine Boston: home? Because they're still kind of obsessed with the man making the buying
Christine Boston: decisions, you know, and that wasn't the case practically in my home
Christine Boston: growing up, so. But of course it was into the 80s, you
Christine Boston: know, the Sex Discrimination act was passed in 1975, so
Christine Boston: kind of awareness, empowerment was kind of really coming about. It
Christine Boston: was the era of women having independence, being financially
Christine Boston: independent, you know, because of the new legislation. Women then,
Christine Boston: you know, there was kind that could no longer be told. They had to have
Christine Boston: a male guarantor to have a mortgage, for example, they could have their own bank
Christine Boston: account, they could have their job. And it was kind of the age of the
Christine Boston: superwoman archetype. You know, women, you can have it all. You
Christine Boston: can have the career, the big shoulder pads, the family, you know,
Christine Boston: all that. Yeah. So that, you know, those kind of, like values and
Christine Boston: ideals really sunk in for me. So I was very
Christine Boston: determined. I was going to have the career, I was going to have the independence
Christine Boston: I was going to. You know, from that point, I kind of really championed
Christine Boston: women's rights and I have been a trailblazer myself. You know, there are
Christine Boston: changes in terms of altar service. I mean, this sounds really geeky, doesn't it? And
Christine Boston: I'm not a massive religious churchgoer these days. But
Christine Boston: it is true to say that, you know, I played a major role in
Christine Boston: shaping the kind of system where boys could serve on the
Christine Boston: altar and girls couldn't. And now boys and girls do that equally. And I
Christine Boston: just believe that if you want to, there's no practical reason why you
Christine Boston: shouldn't, then that ought to be okay. So, yeah, so brought about a lot of
Christine Boston: change. And then I was very determined myself to be financially
Christine Boston: independent. I. Because kind of, you know, women then
Christine Boston: were able to get mortgages, get property in their own right. That's what
Christine Boston: I was going to do. I bought my first house when I was 21,
Christine Boston: I think, kind of to get a real idea of what that's like. I found
Christine Boston: the Handmaid's Tale really, like, enlightening because they're
Christine Boston: going through a time, you know, at the kind of beginning of season one, where
Christine Boston: they're losing all these rights again. You know, only the men can have the bank
Christine Boston: account. So all your money and your bank account and your assets have to go
Christine Boston: in, you know, your brother's or your husband's name. So I think, you know, that's
Christine Boston: a really good way to sort of understand it and it brings it to life
Christine Boston: in a kind in the modern day. Um, and then I went on to work
Christine Boston: in gender equality professionally. I was policy and research lead
Christine Boston: for the Welsh charity Gwara Teag, which is. Was an organisation
Christine Boston: focusing on gender equality in the economy. Then I was a founding
Christine Boston: trustee of When Wales, which is the Women's Equality Network in Wales. I spent
Christine Boston: some time in Africa working for the Federation of Women Lawyers Feeder in
Christine Boston: Lesotho. And I've had my own women's leadership journey in those roles.
Christine Boston: I've done a lot on women's leadership, and I kind of really took that to
Christine Boston: heart and sort of have, you know, tried to be a women's
Christine Boston: leader, leadership role model myself as well, in my own career. So Wales,
Joanne Lockwood: for those of you who are listening outside of the uk, is a separate country.
Joanne Lockwood: You have a different culture, maybe to the rest of the uk. I
Joanne Lockwood: know that the Welsh government were very forthright in gender
Joanne Lockwood: equity and promoting women in society and leadership roles.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think that's had a big influence on you, the fact that you are
Joanne Lockwood: Welsh and not English or not British, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, and there's an identity around that? Yeah. So I Was born in England,
Christine Boston: made in Wales. Right. So my career has been in
Christine Boston: Wales, my gender equality professional career has been Wales.
Christine Boston: And yes, you know, I kind of work very close with government,
Christine Boston: very closely with the most senior women in Wales. And yeah, there
Christine Boston: is a kind of, you know, attitude ethos that, you
Christine Boston: know, women can be and will be leaders too, that we need
Christine Boston: gender diversity and broader diversity in decision making.
Christine Boston: And they've been, you know, some wins, some losses. I think we have a gender
Christine Boston: balanced cabinet now. We've certainly had them in the past, but then the
Christine Boston: number of women in the Senate, the Welsh Parliament, that's gone
Christine Boston: down over the years, you know, and that continues to be a drive to try
Christine Boston: and increase that. And I think, you know, it's the societal barriers, I think, that
Christine Boston: get in the way, stereotypes, things like that, that really need to be
Christine Boston: discussed in the open and addressed as far as possible. In the. In
Joanne Lockwood: the workplace, when we talk about career and aspirations,
Joanne Lockwood: there's always this, I think the word, is it
Joanne Lockwood: dichotomy. You can't, you can't have it all. Women still have to make a choice
Joanne Lockwood: whether they want a career or a family. No matter how,
Joanne Lockwood: how much girl power is there, the need
Joanne Lockwood: to be a great mum or be a great parent
Joanne Lockwood: often overrides the priority of furthering a career. Or you have to make that sacrifice.
Joanne Lockwood: And I know many career women who have to have that. Trade and
Joanne Lockwood: compromise. Are we ever going to get to the point where women can have it
Joanne Lockwood: all? I think it's very difficult and I think it needs a balance, really. But
Christine Boston: the fact is we're in a patriarchal society and in a patriarchal society,
Christine Boston: you know, a masculine culture by default, the very, you know,
Christine Boston: fundamental basis of that is distinct roles for men and women.
Christine Boston: Now, in my household, we have a very feminine culture. You know, there are
Christine Boston: no clear gender roles between myself and my husband and I'm quite interested to
Christine Boston: see how that influences my son as the years go on. I mean, he's
Christine Boston: definitely very subject to the influence of stereotyping
Christine Boston: in school, I notice. And so he's having to sort of make his own
Christine Boston: mind up about gender ideals, you know, whether pink is an okay colour for him
Christine Boston: and that sort of thing, whether he can, you know, have his nails painted
Christine Boston: if he wants to and play with the girls and all these. All these
Christine Boston: things that, you know, shouldn't really matter. But the, you
Christine Boston: know, social values and norms are being constructed at that age. He's six,
Christine Boston: you know, so he's in primary school. That's kind of where it's all coming together
Christine Boston: and you can see, you know, different children have different ideas.
Christine Boston: You know, some households will be more traditional than ours is and yeah,
Christine Boston: we'll see how he grows up. But I think, you know, he certainly doesn't see
Christine Boston: this one role for Mum and one role for dad. So, you know, I think
Christine Boston: he'll grow up to be more open minded and more kind of like
Christine Boston: understanding of difference. Yeah, I was watching, I don't know if you've seen it, the
Joanne Lockwood: Netflix series Adolescence, which everyone's talking about at the moment and
Joanne Lockwood: talk about incel talking about the rise of
Joanne Lockwood: say, toxic masculinity. I know that's an inflammatory phrase. I don't mean that to be
Joanne Lockwood: inflammatory to what I'm listening. But it's kind of using the language of Andrew
Joanne Lockwood: Tate and the followers and the
Joanne Lockwood: how the intel movement is gaining traction amongst
Joanne Lockwood: younger generation, you know, young boys mainly. And that must be
Joanne Lockwood: quite worrying because there's almost like this pushback
Joanne Lockwood: or hang on a minute, women are getting too much. Men want to take their
Joanne Lockwood: power back. Yeah, it's very worrying. And you know, I
Christine Boston: wouldn't even repeat the things that are being communicated by Andrew Tate
Christine Boston: because I think it is, you know, it's a real concern and
Christine Boston: a worry it should be for all of us and what that creates. I mean,
Christine Boston: Andrew Tate, you know, he's such an influential TikTok personality.
Christine Boston: His videos have been watched 11.6 billion times
Christine Boston: according to the article I was reading. And that is, you know, I'm sure
Christine Boston: increased already. And it's creating really extreme views
Christine Boston: against women, I would say. Women, I would argue,
Christine Boston: which I think is fair to say, you know, the figures really back this up.
Christine Boston: Women are already really disadvantaged and face a lot of
Christine Boston: barriers to, you know, to kind of achievement, to
Christine Boston: being independent. And you know, I think that
Christine Boston: is really played down a lot. And we're in a society where
Christine Boston: a lot of households have two incomes, you know, whether
Christine Boston: that second income be part time or full time. But you know, both
Christine Boston: parents in the household are working. So yeah, women need to
Christine Boston: be able to kind of participate. If they're being kind of treated equally in
Christine Boston: terms of financial responsibility, then they need to be able
Christine Boston: to participate equally as well. And I always think, you know, we've,
Christine Boston: we're educating our girls, we're paying to educate our girls and, and that's
Christine Boston: exactly the right thing, but then we should be
Christine Boston: helping them to utilise their skills as well. There's so many women working in low
Christine Boston: paid, low skilled, part time roles because they're trying
Christine Boston: to, you know, raise the family at the same time, and that's a great loss
Christine Boston: to society. It's not a great use of the investment, I think, that we've put
Christine Boston: into women. But yeah, of course, you know, as well as Andrew Tate, we've had
Christine Boston: the Mark Zuckerberg comments as well, haven't we, recently, about
Christine Boston: too much feminine energy is neutering the corporate world. And he's saying he
Christine Boston: wants a culture that celebrates aggression more. And really what does
Christine Boston: that achieve for anybody, you know, celebrating aggression? And I've kind of, you know,
Christine Boston: I think we need to have a better awareness of male and female
Christine Boston: styles and approaches, but it's a matter of bringing those all
Christine Boston: together for the benefit. And I mean, I kind of looked at the
Christine Boston: figures around the Meta senior leadership team and their
Christine Boston: board. Their leadership team is one third women. Their
Christine Boston: board is 23% women. You know, as far as I could tell, I'm
Christine Boston: just looking at the website and that. So the board roles, that's about the
Christine Boston: same as the global average. They're making about $62 billion net
Christine Boston: profit, which seems pretty good to me. So it doesn't kind of look like women
Christine Boston: have, you know, held them back too much. I think, you know, Zuckerberg might actually
Christine Boston: agree that gender diversity on boards is good for business. And I just
Christine Boston: think, you know, maybe his views are more related to the fear of the
Christine Boston: male elite losing their power in a patriarchal society, you know,
Christine Boston: which the US and the UK are. But in terms of kind of the benefits
Christine Boston: for business, you know, we know diversity is good. The figures show that, you
Christine Boston: know, in terms of kind of boardroom representation, the boards that have a
Christine Boston: good representation of women, they celebrate, you know, the benefits of different
Christine Boston: perspectives. They have better business performance and they're more
Christine Boston: innovative and creative. So, you know, there's a very clear argument for
Christine Boston: helping women to progress. Now, I, I've written some articles on Sheryl
Joanne Lockwood: Sanderberg, the. The former Facebook executive
Joanne Lockwood: who is famous for her leaning in mantra and
Joanne Lockwood: the criticism coming that really she isn't a feminist, she's a
Joanne Lockwood: complicit male applauder and promoting
Joanne Lockwood: white women and not intersectional approach and pulling
Joanne Lockwood: up, she's pulling up the ladder behind her for black women and people
Joanne Lockwood: around her. So even though we have maybe female
Joanne Lockwood: representation in some of these big mega corporates, are they
Joanne Lockwood: really doing much for gender equality or are they doing a lot for themselves?
Christine Boston: And that is the question we need to ask. Pulling the ladder up behind them
Christine Boston: is extremely common and kind of, you Know what I see, sex
Christine Boston: discrimination is still an issue today. You know, I can kind of give a personal
Christine Boston: example. When I was accessing financial services not that long
Christine Boston: ago, I, you know, it was me that went for the service, it was me
Christine Boston: that was paying for the service. And then when, you know, I was looking to
Christine Boston: get a mortgage with my husband, they wanted to put my husband's name first
Christine Boston: on their, you know, because it helps their filing. I mean, I just don't
Christine Boston: see it, you know, I can't understand what the reason
Christine Boston: is, why that's important. If I'm your client and I'm paying,
Christine Boston: you know, why does my husband need to go first? So that
Christine Boston: was really kind of, you know, enlightening for me. And then we know
Christine Boston: that claims are going up as well. So, you know, there's clearly things happening
Christine Boston: here. And the figures show that ACAs are reporting a
Christine Boston: 6.2 increase in disputes between 23
Christine Boston: and 24 facing successful claims and an
Christine Boston: increase in the amount of money awarded. And I think kind of what's
Christine Boston: happening is, you know, got lots of. There's lots of awareness about
Christine Boston: underrepresented groups and the barriers for them. I think you have lots of kind of
Christine Boston: empowerment programmes for those non
Christine Boston: underrepresented groups. So there. And I think what's happening is, you know, they are really
Christine Boston: empowered and they understand what's happening, they can see
Christine Boston: it. But then, you know, kind of, I, I think where
Christine Boston: it goes wrong is businesses increase diversity, but they don't do the culture work to
Christine Boston: go with it. And so you have, you know, there will be conflict
Christine Boston: and probably lots of microaggressions. Maybe, you know, when concerns
Christine Boston: get raised, nothing happens and it can become like a really big,
Christine Boston: you know, reputational issue. You're seeing lots of examples of
Christine Boston: it. I feel like I'm seeing it every week at the minute. It was Mid
Christine Boston: and North Wales Police having major issues with harassment and sex
Christine Boston: discrimination. BBC McDonald's. You know, there's been kind of quite a
Christine Boston: number in the last few weeks that are kind of really standing out for me.
Christine Boston: And yeah, I think it's, you know, I think what's really important
Christine Boston: is understanding, understanding and understanding that men
Christine Boston: and women are different. I feel like that gets played down all the time,
Christine Boston: you know, like men and women are a homogenous group. But there's so much evidence
Christine Boston: that demonstrates the kind how women are disadvantaged in
Christine Boston: society and particularly from an economic point of view. And
Christine Boston: I'm really, really interested. I'm extremely passionate about the work of
Christine Boston: Deborah Tannen, who's A sociolinguist and she wrote a book and
Christine Boston: it's a bit dated now, but for me it's such an important piece of work
Christine Boston: and I know that she was kind of quite blown away about the
Christine Boston: interest in the kind of gender aspect of her work and has done a lot
Christine Boston: more on that as a result. But yeah, the book's called you Just Don't Understand
Christine Boston: Women. Women and Men in Conversation. And what she talks
Christine Boston: about is she says male female conversation is cross
Christine Boston: cultural communication. She uses the term
Christine Boston: genderlect and I quote, she says
Christine Boston: learning each other's way of talking is a leap across the communication
Christine Boston: gap between men and women and a giant step towards genuine
Christine Boston: understanding. You know, I think there are such fundamental
Christine Boston: differences, you know, that are reinforced in many
Christine Boston: ways, you know, through stereotypes and things like that that we're just not
Christine Boston: talking about. And it's creating, I mean, we're in a world of polarisation, aren't
Christine Boston: we? And it's just creating more and more polarisation and we
Christine Boston: need to kind of combat that by making all
Christine Boston: individuals aware. So, you know, I think there's a place for
Christine Boston: women's empowerment programmes, you know, all the women in leadership
Christine Boston: programmes, I think that's very important. But I also think it's important
Christine Boston: for organisations to be gender aware and make sure,
Christine Boston: you know, all their colleagues have an understanding of how, you know, women leaders are
Christine Boston: stereotyped and how that impacts them negatively and that sort of
Christine Boston: thing and how to kind of like appreciate the range of different approaches that, that
Christine Boston: can be in the workplace. Yeah, put it back to what you were saying there
Joanne Lockwood: around the difference between men and women. You specifically
Joanne Lockwood: mentioned around conversation and language. Having
Joanne Lockwood: spent a good part of my life surrounded and
Joanne Lockwood: immersed in male culture and male groups. Male language,
Joanne Lockwood: male interests, male banter, male humour, and then
Joanne Lockwood: crossing the fence, if you like, and spending the next part of my life
Joanne Lockwood: almost entirely female focused in female groups and language.
Joanne Lockwood: I can completely agree there is a difference
Joanne Lockwood: in the whole tone of conversations and the
Joanne Lockwood: how you support each other. I'm not saying every male conversation is about
Joanne Lockwood: competition and alpha male and trying to prove a point. I'm not saying every
Joanne Lockwood: female conversation is around collaboration and helping and supporting each
Joanne Lockwood: other. There are obviously shades of grey and a spectrum there, but I
Joanne Lockwood: do find inherently female based conversations are more inclusive,
Joanne Lockwood: more collaborative, more supportive. Certainly in a friendship group where
Joanne Lockwood: male conversations are all about trying to pick holes in each other and trying to
Joanne Lockwood: get one up. I find it really difficult now to spend much time
Joanne Lockwood: in male company because I find it so exhausting so
Joanne Lockwood: it. Is a very different. It's completely exhausting. And I really
Joanne Lockwood: celebrate and embrace my female identity and being in female
Joanne Lockwood: only company because it's just. I just feel so much more at home
Joanne Lockwood: with it. And. Yeah, and the other thing I notice is how I
Joanne Lockwood: call it gender coded language. So I can tell if
Joanne Lockwood: I'm with a person or with people who code me as male or
Joanne Lockwood: code me as female by the language and how they talk to me. At the
Joanne Lockwood: extreme is I'm sitting in a taxi and I'm getting effing and blinding
Joanne Lockwood: and mate and football and my wife this and my
Joanne Lockwood: wife that, that kind of laddie type conversation. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: if the taxi driver codes me as female, it's all right, love, how you doing?
Joanne Lockwood: And it's a very much more relaxed, chatty sort of thing. And so
Joanne Lockwood: I, I can, I can very easily tell the energy that's coming
Joanne Lockwood: towards me. And so it is different and it. Is that
Joanne Lockwood: a construct? Have we invented that or is it just the differences between the
Joanne Lockwood: genders? It is so interesting, isn't it? So now, I don't know if you've read
Christine Boston: Tanner's work, but it very much sounds like you have. They are the types of
Christine Boston: things that she talks about. And I think it's really important to be clear that
Christine Boston: according to UN figures, they say that 90% of
Christine Boston: men and women hold bias against women. So kind
Christine Boston: of, you know, what I've seen in the workplace at times is that, you know,
Christine Boston: basically, well, a woman's said that, a woman's made that claim. So it must be
Christine Boston: true. There can't be. There can't be this in it. It must be true because
Christine Boston: a woman said it about a woman, you know, and it's like, well, no, because,
Christine Boston: you know, we're in a patriarchal society and
Christine Boston: 90% of men and women hold those views about
Christine Boston: what's normal. So that's definitely not the way to judge it. But
Christine Boston: yeah, Tannen talks about exactly kind of what you've just shared. Really, like
Christine Boston: report talk versus rapport talk. So, you know,
Christine Boston: men are in conversation, they're competing for a higher
Christine Boston: status and women want connection and
Christine Boston: relationships. So it's kind of the status versus relationship,
Christine Boston: competition versus connection. And it's really interesting. So I've got plenty of
Christine Boston: examples from home and I wonder if kind of you and listeners can
Christine Boston: relate to this. But, you know, I could give you a situation where, you
Christine Boston: know, I might be kind of having my dinner with the family and my
Christine Boston: husband's talking about frustrations from his day. You know, and
Christine Boston: my response is, oh, yeah, I know. Here's the thing that happened to
Christine Boston: me, you know, so I'm trying to demonstrate how I understand
Christine Boston: what he's talking about. I've experienced it too. And his reaction
Christine Boston: to that is, you've just made it about yourself, you know, because
Christine Boston: he's thinking about status and competition. That has to be about one or two of
Christine Boston: us, and it's about me, you know, because. And, you know, he wants it to
Christine Boston: be about him because, you know, he's put that forward. Whereas to me, I'm
Christine Boston: just trying to, you know, to build that connection. That's what's important
Christine Boston: to me. And, yeah, I can. You know, the examples of that at home all
Christine Boston: the time that I notice. And it's just kind of a natural thing. I
Joanne Lockwood: call that an empathy bridge. What you're trying to do is. I don't know what
Joanne Lockwood: you're going through. I can't relate to everything, your lived experience. But what I can
Joanne Lockwood: try and do is build empathy across this bridge to what you're saying against something
Joanne Lockwood: I recognise. And to show connection with you, I'm repeating
Joanne Lockwood: back in my own language, which then you think is diverting away from
Joanne Lockwood: you. But actually it's me checking my understanding. In my own language
Christine Boston: and women might do that. And I think that's kind of quite typical in
Christine Boston: communication. And that's what Tannen demonstrates. I do wonder if there's been
Christine Boston: change over time. Like I say, you know, her work's fairly dated now,
Christine Boston: it's probably news. And I do think there's a lot more awareness today
Christine Boston: that, you know, an individual's lived experience is their lived experience. And not
Christine Boston: to try and say, yeah, you know, I know exactly when you don't, because it's
Christine Boston: them. But, yeah, I think, you know, the approach in the communication
Christine Boston: and the kind of, you know, the fundamental ways that men and women
Christine Boston: communicate and react to each other, they are still very much true and kind
Christine Boston: of need to be part of the debate. I've never. I've never
Joanne Lockwood: read that book or heard of that study before. So it's really interesting because I.
Joanne Lockwood: I guess my. My perception is. My perception is
Joanne Lockwood: completely born out of lived experience and observation. And I guess when
Joanne Lockwood: you're a member of the club on the inside, you
Joanne Lockwood: get a true representation of the real language and the real
Joanne Lockwood: culture that goes on. And I've been on both clubs, but I
Joanne Lockwood: can't now join, go back to the old club and I was
Joanne Lockwood: never welcome in the same way in the new club. So when I'm
Joanne Lockwood: in these situations. Now, I do have this before
Joanne Lockwood: and after I was a member of that club. Now I'm not and I see
Joanne Lockwood: how it is. I'm a member of this club. Well, I wasn't before and now
Joanne Lockwood: I see how it is. It really is
Joanne Lockwood: personal observation, just realising and being hyper aware of
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on. I'll give you a story.
Joanne Lockwood: I had two nights out in Brick Lane in London. For those who know, the
Joanne Lockwood: East End of London is the bagel and curry place central for.
Joanne Lockwood: And I was out with a group of men one night and the men were
Joanne Lockwood: talking about a fight they'd been in, how they had their nose
Joanne Lockwood: broken and had stitches and they're bleeding and all this sort of thing.
Joanne Lockwood: And there was three or four men in this group all talking about their broken
Joanne Lockwood: noses. And I was out three night, two or three nights later with
Joanne Lockwood: a group of women in literally a hundred yards down the road in Brick Lane.
Joanne Lockwood: And they were talking about childbirth and they were talking about stitches they'd had
Joanne Lockwood: after childbirth and how much pain it was. I thought men were talking about
Joanne Lockwood: their noses being broken and women were talking about their. The stitches they'd had post
Joanne Lockwood: childbirth. And I just sort of sat there in my own little mind, chuckling inside
Joanne Lockwood: my head, thinking, this is so surreal. Same topic,
Joanne Lockwood: different part of the body. So, yes, we have commonality in what's important
Joanne Lockwood: to us and how we want to share, but the motivation and the language we
Joanne Lockwood: use is completely different. Now all women have got a childbirth
Christine Boston: story. Total worriers. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it is. And so in order
Joanne Lockwood: to change society, the constructs of how we create a gender,
Joanne Lockwood: if we. I think what I'm hearing from you is there are fundamental differences
Joanne Lockwood: that aren't just constructs. These are kind of our brains, the nurture versus
Joanne Lockwood: nature. So there's a lot of nature in there as well. But if we want
Joanne Lockwood: to change the aspirations and the way women are
Joanne Lockwood: welcomed and embraced in the workplace, in society as a whole, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: generational shift, isn't it? Because what frustrates me is if you
Joanne Lockwood: talk to maybe
Joanne Lockwood: a woman who's maybe, I don't know, let's just say in their late early teens,
Joanne Lockwood: early teens and a man in their early teens who are thinking about their aspirations
Joanne Lockwood: to start a family, to get married, have children, all this kind of thing,
Joanne Lockwood: they're already starting to think about, I want a little girl because
Joanne Lockwood: I want a little boy. And I'm already thinking about the rough, tough taking, the
Joanne Lockwood: football type stuff. So we're Pre programming the
Joanne Lockwood: destiny of our offspring throughout our own
Joanne Lockwood: childhood, adolescence and creating our own aspirations for that
Joanne Lockwood: family. So if we're going to have any
Joanne Lockwood: way of breaking some of these stereotypes, rewriting the constructs,
Joanne Lockwood: we've got to start training our young children today around
Joanne Lockwood: gender equity and what gender construct is and how we can break
Joanne Lockwood: out of these. So young boys, young girls, young non binary people
Joanne Lockwood: to try and talk about the damage that gender stereotypes cause.
Joanne Lockwood: Because by the time we're in our 20s, no matter how woke we are
Joanne Lockwood: or how enlightened we are, we're having gender reveal parties.
Joanne Lockwood: We've got blue and pink start coming out and we're starting to create aspirations
Joanne Lockwood: of how we perceive our child is going to be based on their gender.
Joanne Lockwood: That's the challenge we've got, isn't it? It's when we try to get right back
Joanne Lockwood: to the point of influence, when we start to break it because we can't break
Joanne Lockwood: it for ourselves. Once we've got it, that's it. And I don't think, you know,
Christine Boston: I don't think people understand, you know, the impact that has on girls
Christine Boston: and then the women they're going to become. Women typically
Christine Boston: have lower pensions, they have less saved in their pension because they're the one that
Christine Boston: ones that have had to kind of take a hit. Things have changed. You know,
Christine Boston: we're not as kind of well supported by workplace pensions or state pensions
Christine Boston: or you know, your partner. Couples don't necessarily
Christine Boston: stay together in the way that they used to. So you know, a lot of
Christine Boston: that security is gone. And I don't think kind of, you know, we're, we're aware
Christine Boston: enough or thinking enough about the future to be able to protect
Christine Boston: children against that. I mean, yeah, stereotyping starts from very
Christine Boston: young, very, very young. And kind of from previous research work that I've done,
Christine Boston: girls and boys start to get an idea of like what are male and female
Christine Boston: roles at the age of three, by the age of three, you know, that's
Christine Boston: extremely young. And then I see in the school still and I'm shocked
Christine Boston: by kind of how stereotypes are reinforced and what's happening
Christine Boston: kind of in the playground, for example, or after school clubs. So our school
Christine Boston: has a, has a ballet club kind of for after school and
Christine Boston: they're optional things that the children can join. And so, you know, when my
Christine Boston: son came home and I knew there was an option for an after school ballet
Christine Boston: club, I said, you know, are you going to do ballet? And he said, oh,
Christine Boston: well, isn't that just for girls? You know, and I said, well, no,
Christine Boston: you know, men do ballet as well. There's nothing wrong with that. If you want
Christine Boston: to do ballet, you know, you absolutely should. There's no reason why you wouldn't. But
Christine Boston: I think, you know, that's all well and good, me having a one on one
Christine Boston: conversation with my son at home, but, you know, what is the school doing
Christine Boston: to make sure the boys feel that they are welcome in that class and
Christine Boston: to challenge, you know, challenge the stereotype in the classroom and make sure
Christine Boston: that, you know, any boys that do decide to go are not going to be,
Christine Boston: you know, teased and bullied for making that decision. Then
Christine Boston: football, My son is into football and we never really expected that.
Christine Boston: I'm not sure, I don't, I kind of, I kind of did suspect I might
Christine Boston: have a boy, but I'm in a family with many, many, many girls.
Christine Boston: So it was, you know, it was quite a big thing.
Christine Boston: So I never really expected I was going to be a football mum. And
Christine Boston: you know, whilst I'll kind of allow him to do whatever he likes,
Christine Boston: you know, I also have been asking him, would you want to go to dance?
Christine Boston: Do you want to do these things? I'm trying to just encourage him to kind
Christine Boston: of be a bit more open. He went to gymnastics and things
Christine Boston: like that and just allowing him to kind of think about all his options and
Christine Boston: not be like, well, you're a boy, you have to do football and all that.
Christine Boston: But I noticed in the playground it appears that it is the
Christine Boston: boys that get the football area and the girls can
Christine Boston: play if they want to, but the boys dominate and the girls
Christine Boston: never have the opportunity to kind of take that as their space. So I
Christine Boston: just feel like the kind of, the different roles are being reinforced in school. They're
Christine Boston: certainly not being challenged. Yeah, the boys turn up with the football, it's their game,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? They put the goalpost down, they pick the teams.
Joanne Lockwood: That only changes when the girls have the football and they pick the teams and
Joanne Lockwood: they put the goalposts down. So I guess like we're seeing in the women's
Joanne Lockwood: Premier League and the women's football sport, they're trying to carve out their own
Joanne Lockwood: identity. They're not, they're not an alternative to the men's game. They're, they're
Joanne Lockwood: a game in their own right. Different personalities, different characters. I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's, that's the important thing. The girls don't need to play in the boys
Joanne Lockwood: game, they need to play, play their own game. And the boys are welcome in
Joanne Lockwood: the Same way. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah,
Christine Boston: I just don't think they're given that opportunity because it's just
Christine Boston: assumed that the boys play football and the girls do this and it's
Christine Boston: like, what if we didn't make that assumption? You know, what would that look like?
Christine Boston: Or what if we said, actually, right, we're going to switch now. So
Christine Boston: if the girls want to play football and use that space, then they can have
Christine Boston: that on that day and it's up to them because the girls maybe don't want
Christine Boston: to play with the boys. And yeah, I'm so
Christine Boston: excited about the women's game in football. I find
Christine Boston: it so much more engaging. You know, never been a football fan
Christine Boston: at all, but I've been to some women's games, I watch them on the tv.
Christine Boston: I find them so much more, more enjoyable.
Christine Boston: The, you know, the women are great to watch. I love the kind of team
Christine Boston: feeling. It just got a whole different feel to it and a different culture and
Christine Boston: I've been to kind of live games and it's got a much more family
Christine Boston: feel. Yeah, I agree. I think I've come, I've been turned off by
Joanne Lockwood: men's football just purely because it's all about masculine personalities,
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes as egos and things and prima donnas. Whereas I
Joanne Lockwood: genuinely feel that mostly when I watch women's football and other women's sports, there is
Joanne Lockwood: very much a team all for one on one, full time,
Joanne Lockwood: genuinely not pretending. And I think sometimes male football is all about
Joanne Lockwood: the aggression and there's too much, I would call cheating.
Joanne Lockwood: Going for the dive, going for the tackle. Women are
Joanne Lockwood: quite rightly worried about their bodies and they're breaking bones and things and they don't
Joanne Lockwood: want to go in for that hard tackle or so they're more likely to. They're
Joanne Lockwood: going hard. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that they compromise anything, but they have
Joanne Lockwood: a different approach to a non contact sport. They don't push the point of contact
Joanne Lockwood: and they. It's exactly that. And I think from what I see, you know,
Christine Boston: they're more collaborative, they're more cooperative even, you
Christine Boston: know, with the players from the different teams, they look after each other a little
Christine Boston: bit more, they're a bit more respectful, whereas the guys are, you know, they're dominant,
Christine Boston: they're assertive. It's just sort of all that typical gender
Christine Boston: stuff. They're focused on the competition, achievement and you know that it's typical
Christine Boston: of kind of masculine feminine culture. And I think that's a really kind of great
Christine Boston: place to see that. Difference play out. We still have.
Joanne Lockwood: We talk about these glass ceilings, we talk about the concrete cliffs and the
Joanne Lockwood: concrete cliff edges where we don't have enough
Joanne Lockwood: women in leadership positions. And we talk about the 30% club, we talk about all
Joanne Lockwood: these different initiatives we have in the city and other places trying to get
Joanne Lockwood: women into senior roles. We can never quite get the momentum, can we?
Joanne Lockwood: We're always, you know, you talked about percentages here on the Facebook board and other
Joanne Lockwood: boards. 25%, we're not seeing enough. 60%, are
Joanne Lockwood: we? 70%. We're not seeing that flip.
Joanne Lockwood: What I find challenging and difficult is that
Joanne Lockwood: when we're in a world now talking about anonymized recruitment processes as free
Joanne Lockwood: recruitment, that's great because we're anonymizing out
Joanne Lockwood: who you are, whatever you may be. But the challenge is,
Joanne Lockwood: if we want to rectify a 70, 30 male
Joanne Lockwood: female representation, we can't
Joanne Lockwood: hire one woman for every man because that ratio
Joanne Lockwood: will never change. We have to hire 2.5 women
Joanne Lockwood: for every male for the next five years in order to get that
Joanne Lockwood: from 30, 40, 50, 60 to 50%. And I think that's
Joanne Lockwood: what organisations aren't doing enough of. And the problem, then
Joanne Lockwood: we end up with positive discrimination the other way, which no one's in favour of
Joanne Lockwood: either. But how, how do we create an environment then, where we are
Joanne Lockwood: actively recruiting women in a higher ratio
Joanne Lockwood: to offset that balance without being discriminatory to men?
Christine Boston: Yeah, I think, you know, bias is a really important
Christine Boston: kind of subject to think about because whilst we have
Christine Boston: all this, you know, kind of awareness in recruitment
Christine Boston: and the, the kind of, you know, name blind, all that sort of
Christine Boston: thing, we've still got bias. There is still bias at play in,
Christine Boston: you know, the most engineered to be fair recruitment
Christine Boston: processes. You know, if you kind of look at, you know, how to
Christine Boston: get a job right now, it's sort of. You should network, you know, because
Christine Boston: if you are interviewing with people, you know, then there'll be a positive
Christine Boston: bias, you know, of some sort at play. And I think it's really
Christine Boston: interesting to consider, kind of. And I've done a piece on this
Christine Boston: about this recently about, you know, what is merit and who
Christine Boston: decides? Yes, BS of meritocracy. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, one of my, One of my topics. That one. Yeah, yeah. And,
Christine Boston: you know, women and all underrepresented groups, we are, you know,
Christine Boston: really happy to kind of, you know, put ourselves down, keep
Christine Boston: these barriers in the way. You know, kind of heard somebody
Christine Boston: kind of recently saying, you know, well, you know, I don't. Well, they Were talking
Christine Boston: about Donald Trump and saying. And all his views on EDI policies, and they were
Christine Boston: saying, well, I agree with Donald Trump, actually, because I don't want to be recruited
Christine Boston: on the basis of merit. You know, I don't want to be recruited just because
Christine Boston: I'm a woman or I'm this or I'm that. But I said, well, men
Christine Boston: have been getting recruited through the golf club forever, you know, and through
Christine Boston: their networks forever. So why, you know, why are we
Christine Boston: so reluctant to have the same privileges and opportunities?
Christine Boston: Why would we do that to ourselves? But we're so like. And that idea of
Christine Boston: merit has been created by those in power to protect their own
Christine Boston: position. And, you know, we play right into that, don't we? But,
Christine Boston: yeah, you know, the stereotypes are very clear, you know, in terms of women leadership,
Christine Boston: you know, all these kind of. It's a really fine line that
Christine Boston: women leaders have to walk because there can't be too much this, there
Christine Boston: can't be too much that. You know, if women were to communicate in this same
Christine Boston: way as a man, you know, a woman leader, in the same way as a
Christine Boston: male leader, they can often be labelled negatively. Like, they're
Christine Boston: aggressive, they're controlling, and you've got all the kind of,
Christine Boston: you know, aspects that kind of. Tannen describes
Christine Boston: playing out there. Things like, you know, if a male leader was to go into
Christine Boston: a room and think it's cold, they might just say, it's cold in here. Someone
Christine Boston: close a window. A woman is more likely to come in and say, anybody feel
Christine Boston: cold? You know, didn't. Do you think we should close the window? Like, it's a
Christine Boston: choice, like she's making a suggestion, you know, but actually,
Christine Boston: you know, if you think about, you know, they're hoping that they can rely on
Christine Boston: hierarchy, that people will know, maybe suggestion about closing the window, someone will
Christine Boston: close the window. But it doesn't kind of quite happen in the same way. But,
Christine Boston: you know, if a woman comes in and says, it's cold in here, close
Christine Boston: the window. Gives it as an order or an instruction that's often not
Christine Boston: perceived well. And you have different groups. You have, you know,
Christine Boston: women leaders who kind of really hold on to their
Christine Boston: authenticity and their identity and their approach and say, I'm going to do it in
Christine Boston: my own way. And my way is, you know, compassionate, empathetic,
Christine Boston: understanding. You know, some might say softer, more gentle,
Christine Boston: you know. Yeah, in some was some women, you know, we're going to do that.
Christine Boston: Others are, you know, used to a more masculine culture and think,
Christine Boston: I've got to Be like that to be successful, you know,
Christine Boston: and kind of that's what we're fighting against, really. I heard Rose
Joanne Lockwood: Ailing Ellis on, I think it was BBC Radio 2 the other
Joanne Lockwood: morning, and there was something she said which cut right
Joanne Lockwood: into me and I thought, wow, wow. And she
Joanne Lockwood: said, I have a sign interpreter here for you
Joanne Lockwood: because I know you and many of you don't use sign language,
Joanne Lockwood: can't speak sign language. So my interpreter's there for you, not for me.
Joanne Lockwood: They're there for you because you don't speak sign language. I thought, wow,
Joanne Lockwood: what empowerment and ownership of that
Joanne Lockwood: situation. And I thought that was incredible. And what
Joanne Lockwood: made me think of that is what listen to you. Because
Joanne Lockwood: in order for women to succeed, often they're told they need to be more
Joanne Lockwood: like men to overcome the biases. When you speak,
Joanne Lockwood: you don't end the sentence in an uptick. You have to go land it down
Joanne Lockwood: to sound more authoritative. Otherwise it sounds like a question and
Joanne Lockwood: uncertainty. That's a bias, that in the way
Joanne Lockwood: you speak. I hear that uptick. I think it's a question, not a statement.
Joanne Lockwood: In order for women to be taken more seriously, we're saying you have to speak
Joanne Lockwood: more like a man. Actually, what we should be saying is
Joanne Lockwood: we need to be speaking. We need to be learning how to listen better and
Joanne Lockwood: not making an assumption based on what we hear. In the same way that Rose
Joanne Lockwood: Ellis Ailing Ellis is the science interpreter's for you, not for me.
Joanne Lockwood: And mine was going, hang on a minute, I thought it's for you. It's not.
Joanne Lockwood: It is for me. You can speak perfectly happily with sign language.
Joanne Lockwood: I can't. Wow. So it's about reframing those
Joanne Lockwood: views and allowing people to succeed for who they
Joanne Lockwood: are, not to comply with someone else's definition of what credible is.
Joanne Lockwood: And I made a decision not to retrain my voice
Joanne Lockwood: because to make other people feel comfortable with my voice. So I've
Joanne Lockwood: chosen to keep it because it's my voice. And if you've got a problem with
Joanne Lockwood: it, that's your problem, not mine. So I think we need to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to challenge this bs, the meritocracy of what is
Joanne Lockwood: valuable, what succeeds. That's the challenge that we as women have to face,
Joanne Lockwood: is to get people to say, you're good enough, you're fabulous, you're wonderful,
Joanne Lockwood: actually. Yeah, yeah, perfectly wonderful in your way.
Christine Boston: You know, you don't have to try to be something else because, you know, it's
Christine Boston: about performance and results. But the aware, you know, the
Christine Boston: awareness is absolutely fundamental, isn't it? Because otherwise
Christine Boston: you're just placing judgement on thing, on something you think is right and no
Christine Boston: one's ever challenged a question. You know, again, like the whole idea of
Christine Boston: merit. If you think like merit is a thing that's kind of, you know, you
Christine Boston: have it or you don't, then you're gonna probably, you know,
Christine Boston: you're going to make one assumption. If you are aware that
Christine Boston: merit is something that is defined by somebody, it's a decision
Christine Boston: that gets made, then it's totally different, isn't it? I mean, I used to, I
Christine Boston: kind of noticed, you know, with my teams that we were kind of
Christine Boston: recruiting the same. And what I said to them was, well,
Christine Boston: first, first of all, you know, can you look at the questions in the process
Christine Boston: and think about how do you make this a level playing field? Because, you know,
Christine Boston: we don't want to advantage somebody who's
Christine Boston: internal, for example, or already in the sector, because do we actually need that,
Christine Boston: you know, or how can we kind of look at kind of, you know,
Christine Boston: just, yeah, create that level playing field so everyone's got, you know, starting
Christine Boston: from the same place and got the same opportunity. And also I'd say to them
Christine Boston: we need to look for culture add, not culture fit. And I think that changes
Christine Boston: your bias when you come into that recruitment decision. And then of course, it's all
Christine Boston: the other things, like having diverse panel, you know, as far as you
Christine Boston: possibly can, making sure it's not all kind of. Yeah, well,
Christine Boston: I'd say more than two types because, you know, typically you'll have male,
Christine Boston: female, but actually how can you diversify even more than that on your panel? Because
Christine Boston: that's, that's what you want to be doing, really. But yeah, kind of women are
Christine Boston: having to kind of work in this really awkward and difficult
Christine Boston: situation, figure out like, who they are, who do they have to be?
Christine Boston: Do they have to be that, you know, all the time? They're facing a range
Christine Boston: of different, other, different barriers at home. Like the barriers
Christine Boston: in relation to the reproduction of life. Like all sorts of things that women
Christine Boston: might be going through around trying to conceive or
Christine Boston: maybe pregnancy loss, which is hugely played down. So, you know,
Christine Boston: kind of society sort of tells you that that's, you know, that's nothing and you
Christine Boston: just should be carrying on because that's not really a thing. But actually, psychologically it's
Christine Boston: very impactful. Pregnancy and maternity discrimination, you know, whether
Christine Boston: you think you're thinking you have a baby or not, it really doesn't matter. Like
Christine Boston: employers, if you're a woman of a certain age are still
Christine Boston: discriminating against kind of women in
Christine Boston: that group. I've got, I've got a story about that. I was working in an
Joanne Lockwood: organisation and two or three of my male colleagues in
Joanne Lockwood: a meeting said we should do a sweepstake.
Joanne Lockwood: Our colleague Helen has just got engaged. How
Joanne Lockwood: quickly before, when she's going to get married, who's going to guess how quickly she'll
Joanne Lockwood: get married? And then it was, how quickly after she was married would she fall
Joanne Lockwood: pregnant? And that was a sweepstake, a serious sweepstake. And they
Joanne Lockwood: all went, oh, yeah, I'll put a quid on August and I'll put a
Joanne Lockwood: quid on next February for being pregnant. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: still the perception that a woman can't get married, can't
Joanne Lockwood: get engaged or can't have their own family life without people
Joanne Lockwood: judging what that means. Men would be, yeah, great, we have
Joanne Lockwood: a stag weekend and it'll be all kind of SAP each other on the back
Joanne Lockwood: without any expectation that that person is going
Joanne Lockwood: to want to be an active part of their family. And that
Joanne Lockwood: breaks, you know, you then that, that was very gender stereotype there. You know, we
Joanne Lockwood: have female, female couples, we have male, male couples, non binary, non
Joanne Lockwood: binary couples and a whole mix of different permutations in
Joanne Lockwood: relationships. Men are being judged as workers, women are being judged as
Joanne Lockwood: homemakers and we need to break that barrier down and make it acceptable both ways.
Christine Boston: Absolutely. So, yeah, I remember, you know,
Christine Boston: I was going for a new role just before I got married and I was
Christine Boston: saying, well, you know, I was wondering to myself, and I was asking other
Christine Boston: people, do you think I should take my engagement ring off? Because are they going
Christine Boston: to, you know, judge me based on that? Would that disadvantage me
Christine Boston: wearing an engagement ring? And then, you know, I had one conversation with
Christine Boston: someone who said, well, you know, if that happens, it's not the right
Christine Boston: workplace for you. And I thought, yeah, so kept the ring on,
Christine Boston: got the job and that was great and they were a fantastic employer. But there's
Christine Boston: so much like that. And it's really clear in my household because like I say,
Christine Boston: you know, we're, we're very equal. And throughout
Christine Boston: my career, you know, I campaigned for shared parental leave.
Christine Boston: And so, you know, it was only right that we made the most of that
Christine Boston: and it worked for our financial situation. So I went back to work after
Christine Boston: our baby was five months old. My husband had three months off full
Christine Boston: time. And before I, before I had the
Christine Boston: baby, people were saying to me, oh, will you give up work? You know,
Christine Boston: when the baby Comes, will you give up work? And I was absolutely horrified, you
Christine Boston: know, thinking, why on earth would I do that? You know, I've
Christine Boston: worked really hard to get where I am, why would I give up work?
Christine Boston: And then they'll say, so I'd just say to them that, you know, you know,
Christine Boston: not, not planning on doing that. I'm expecting to still go back full time because,
Christine Boston: I mean, you know, in my bit of an occupational hazard, but very aware of
Christine Boston: the motherhood penalty, so I was going to try and resist that as far as
Christine Boston: possible. So. And then, yeah, baby came, you know, as I
Christine Boston: thought, wanted to go back to work. So I went back quite early and yes,
Christine Boston: my husband was off full time and I said to him one morning, and I
Christine Boston: don't know why now, it was a morning that seems, seems a funny
Christine Boston: time to have this conversation, but I was getting ready for work, ready to leave
Christine Boston: the house, he was sorting out the baby, ready for the day.
Christine Boston: And I said to him, has anybody asked you if you're going back
Christine Boston: part time? And he said, no, no one, not a single person
Christine Boston: had asked him that, even though he's off three months full time, you know,
Christine Boston: on shared parental leave. And I said,
Christine Boston: I must have been asked about 20 times, are you
Christine Boston: coming back part time? Because that's just an assumption that gets made, you know,
Christine Boston: despite the fact if I did that, I'd be losing my salary, I'd be losing
Christine Boston: my pension, I'd probably be having to do the same job. I mean, I was
Christine Boston: that, that's typical anyway for all women. But I was a director, you know, job
Christine Boston: that's got to be done. I'm running, you know, the organisation in Wales, I have
Christine Boston: to get this job done and I can't just say, I'm not gonna do that
Christine Boston: bit, you know, but I'm gonna kind of flex my hours in this
Christine Boston: way. So, yeah, and it has serious financial
Christine Boston: penalties for women. And that is the problem as well.
Joanne Lockwood: You have part time hours and part time money, but full time
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility. So you still end up cramming your 40
Joanne Lockwood: hours into 32 or into 28 or something. And again,
Joanne Lockwood: that's the penalty that many women, they feel
Joanne Lockwood: they have to do that to meet the expectations of not
Joanne Lockwood: being a slacker, not being, you know, being committed. It's very difficult
Joanne Lockwood: to just sort of say, oh, it's 4:30, pick the kids up from school,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm off now, bye. In many environments, I also
Joanne Lockwood: recognise there are many organisations because I go into organisations to provide training
Joanne Lockwood: courses and are very conscious about the fact what time do you
Joanne Lockwood: want the day to end? And quite often they'll say, well, we need to wrap
Joanne Lockwood: it up by 3:30 because some people have got childcare and they need to go
Joanne Lockwood: off and collect their kids and things. I said, absolutely fantastic. And
Joanne Lockwood: I now almost schedule the courses 10 till
Joanne Lockwood: 3:30 deliberately so people got time to come in and they've
Joanne Lockwood: got time to leave at the end. Whereas if you go for the old style,
Joanne Lockwood: nine o' clock till five, that doesn't work for everybody. Does
Christine Boston: doesn't. And I think, you know, one of my concerns at the minute is about
Christine Boston: this, you know, push to return people to the office because homeworking
Christine Boston: is really beneficial for many. You know, anyone with caring responsibilities,
Christine Boston: people with disabilities and returning to the office is going to have a
Christine Boston: negative impact on them. And kind of I've heard senior leaders saying,
Christine Boston: well, you know, they can just arrive late and leave early. Well, are
Christine Boston: you going to pay them for that or do you expect them to take a
Christine Boston: pay cut? And I suspect, you know, it'll be a reduction in pay as well.
Christine Boston: And what I really believe in and what I'm promoting is a different approach to
Christine Boston: performance management that's about results, not time. Because that
Christine Boston: just allows people to work flexibly as they need to to get
Christine Boston: the work done. And as long as they're actually delivering what is required and
Christine Boston: that's less to do with outputs. Because I always kind of used to say, you
Christine Boston: know, my colleagues would be saying, written so many reports, well,
Christine Boston: that's great, but if they're sitting on the shelf making no difference at all and
Christine Boston: not being read, then that was, to be honest, a waste of time. So really
Christine Boston: thinking about, right, what do you need that individual to achieve and what's fair
Christine Boston: for the amount of time that you're paying them or, you know, for the amount
Christine Boston: of money you're paying them and managing in that way instead and really
Christine Boston: looking at did that person deliver what we pay them to do or
Christine Boston: not? You mentioned earlier about it. Well, I think
Joanne Lockwood: you mentioned Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. We talked about the impact
Joanne Lockwood: of that in certain parts of the world. I feel that there's
Joanne Lockwood: almost this potential for that dystopia to come to
Joanne Lockwood: fruition in some parts. Especially if you drew a map of Gilead and laid it
Joanne Lockwood: over the US and it's kind of the central belt, the central block of the
Joanne Lockwood: US Is Gilead in that story. California, New York and
Joanne Lockwood: the coastal areas are kind of the old US if you like, affiliated to Canada.
Joanne Lockwood: So we're Seeing abortion rights pulled back,
Joanne Lockwood: we're seeing trans rights, we're seeing queer rights,
Joanne Lockwood: gay rights, necks on the cards, we're seeing these pure
Joanne Lockwood: Christian values coming back into play. Could that happen in Europe?
Joanne Lockwood: Could that happen in the uk? Believe anything. And, you
Christine Boston: know, now after I've kind of had so many things happen
Christine Boston: where I thought that would never happen, you know, like the pandemic, Brexit, all this
Christine Boston: sort of stuff. So now I can believe anything. Yeah, it's, you know, back
Christine Boston: to the polarisation, isn't it, and the kind of Andrew Tate movement and how
Christine Boston: social media is allowing these extreme messages to reach people
Christine Boston: and how it's influencing their view of the world and. And
Christine Boston: what they think is right and wrong and it influences their behaviour and their
Christine Boston: attitudes. So, yeah, I, you know, I. I
Christine Boston: could. I can believe, you know, that it could happen. I don't want to believe
Christine Boston: it and I'll work really hard to make sure it doesn't. But, yeah, we should
Christine Boston: all be concerned about that, I think. Do you think men
Joanne Lockwood: should have their hormones tested to see if they've got too much
Joanne Lockwood: testosterone in their bloodstream that might give them an unfair
Joanne Lockwood: advantage against other men? It's really interesting you say that
Christine Boston: because, actually, I think that, you know, it just opens a really interesting
Christine Boston: avenue into menopause treatment for women because
Christine Boston: the, you know, I believe more women should be
Christine Boston: prescribed testosterone. There's a great reluctance. There isn't like a product on
Christine Boston: the market for females, so women who are being given
Christine Boston: testosterone, and that includes myself, are having to use products
Christine Boston: that are for men and just sort of do their best, make the best of
Christine Boston: it. There are private products. I think there's something in Australia
Christine Boston: that is for a female market. And, yeah, there's a real reluctance to give women
Christine Boston: testosterone. But I can tell you that, you know, a perimenopause symptom
Christine Boston: is sort of anxiety reduction in self esteem, you know,
Christine Boston: lower self confidence. There's a lot of kind of psychological impacts of
Christine Boston: perimenopause that are often, you know, not properly
Christine Boston: diagnosed by gps, are not treated in the right way.
Christine Boston: And I was. Was lucky to be able to go and see a private specialist
Christine Boston: who put me on testosterone. And it's been transformational. I just wish,
Christine Boston: and I can't imagine that I could have enough to have as much as Donald
Christine Boston: Trump, for example. And I look at that and think, what would it take to
Christine Boston: have that amount of, you know, testosterone and confidence?
Christine Boston: And surely I must be able to have that because I've got a whole packet
Christine Boston: upstairs. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a
Joanne Lockwood: medic by any shift of the imagination or endocrinologist, but my
Joanne Lockwood: understanding is that oestrogen in the female body
Joanne Lockwood: converts to testosterone and women will have a
Joanne Lockwood: testosterone level, whatever the units are, of around 1 to
Joanne Lockwood: 4% of whatever, or nanomoles or whatever this ratio is. Men
Joanne Lockwood: tend to have 20 plus to 40 odd
Joanne Lockwood: nanomoles. Both bodies are
Joanne Lockwood: designed to run with testosterone lubrication in
Joanne Lockwood: different amounts. And you're right, when perimenopause and
Joanne Lockwood: menopause post menopausal women, because they haven't got so much oestrogen in their
Joanne Lockwood: system, then they can't convert that to testosterone. So microdosing, testo
Joanne Lockwood: gel, or whatever the gel is you can put on is gonna
Joanne Lockwood: be a benefit. But what I've learned through my wife
Joanne Lockwood: is that there's almost a reluctance
Joanne Lockwood: to hormone profile CIS women because they
Joanne Lockwood: say it makes no sense because we don't know what that means. And I think,
Joanne Lockwood: well, if you've never got a baseline, you're never going to know what it means.
Joanne Lockwood: But what you could say is statistically this person has
Joanne Lockwood: a lower oestrogen, a lower testosterone, lower progesterone. Therefore
Joanne Lockwood: statistically, they're more likely to be having anxiety, heat
Joanne Lockwood: flashes, itchy skin, brain fog, all the kind of menopausal
Joanne Lockwood: symptoms statistically. And if we add a little bit of
Joanne Lockwood: HRT gel, a bit of bit of testosterone, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: then we could, we can then observe the change. But no one's doing that
Joanne Lockwood: observation. They're not saying, let's try a bit, let's try it. Whereas I,
Joanne Lockwood: I get, I get my hormone profile taken every year to make sure that my
Joanne Lockwood: levels are correct. Why me? Why isn't every woman, every man getting
Joanne Lockwood: hormone profile testing just to create these baselines to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to understand society, the effect of these hormones, because they affect your
Joanne Lockwood: brain, they affect your mood, they affect your reaction to stimulus,
Joanne Lockwood: everything, those three, testosterone, progesterone and oestrogen,
Joanne Lockwood: with a bit of prolactin, the other hormones, have a huge impact on your
Joanne Lockwood: health and wellbeing. Exactly. And think of the impact on women's
Christine Boston: careers because it's that age group that are most likely to be in leadership
Christine Boston: roles. And there are also most likely or more likely, you know, to have increased
Christine Boston: care and responsibilities. And women are having children later and
Christine Boston: they're also, you know, having to care for adults. So I think you've got, you
Christine Boston: know, a cohort of women who are kind of stuck in that 40s
Christine Boston: age group that have Got children, old parents, perimenopause to win a
Christine Boston: leadership role. You know, something gives in the end.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, and, and being right in the middle of that sandwich generation ourselves,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, we've got elderly parents, we've, over the last two years we've dealt with
Joanne Lockwood: hospitalisation, nursing homes, engaging with social services, old people's mental
Joanne Lockwood: health services. All the things that you think, blimey, there's no, there's no, there's no
Joanne Lockwood: handbook on this. You know, when you're, when you're starting your family, it's
Joanne Lockwood: antenatal classes, everyone's kind of helping you out how to have a baby. It's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of in your brain about that nurture side of looking after your
Joanne Lockwood: family. But suddenly you get to your mid to late 50s and suddenly you've got
Joanne Lockwood: this adult child with new
Joanne Lockwood: responsibilities and no one helps you. Social services aren't any good,
Joanne Lockwood: hospitals aren't any good. They want to treat the physical, they don't want to treat
Joanne Lockwood: the emotional or the mental. And you soon learn that
Joanne Lockwood: you're woefully inequipped to be a later life carer
Joanne Lockwood: for elderly parents or elderly relatives. And imagine if you
Christine Boston: are, you know, a working woman trying
Christine Boston: to, you know, manage everything. I am, I am a working woman and
Joanne Lockwood: I, I do, I do, yeah, I do have to do that. Yeah. And it's.
Christine Boston: Well, of course, I'm just thinking kind of for listeners, you know, thinking about that
Christine Boston: and like all the, you know, the kind of pile up of
Christine Boston: challenges that are, you know, not well supported, you know, women
Christine Boston: often, well, typically not getting adequate medical care for women's
Christine Boston: health matters, not getting, you know, finding very difficult to navigate
Christine Boston: adult social care pay in. I mean, at its worst, our
Christine Boston: childcare bill was twice our mortgage. You know, so sort of having to
Christine Boston: grapple with all of these things whilst pretending that, you
Christine Boston: know, there's nothing to see here and contributing, you know, in the workplace like you're
Christine Boston: an equal, you know, it's not easy. No, my wife and I, we, we both
Joanne Lockwood: talked about this many times where both our parents are similar ages, both are going
Joanne Lockwood: through that stage and we've, we've said to each other that
Joanne Lockwood: we could not have coped had we been working for an employer.
Joanne Lockwood: We only had the flexibility and the ability to be able to
Joanne Lockwood: react and care and deal with because we were self employed working
Joanne Lockwood: together. We both reflect on that.
Joanne Lockwood: But we have a luxury that most of the population don't have. They work
Joanne Lockwood: for somebody else. They have to be accountable for their time and being There.
Joanne Lockwood: And you don't want to say, sorry, I can't today, or
Joanne Lockwood: actually, my, My elderly father's had a fall and I've had to
Joanne Lockwood: wait half the night for an ambulance. The ambulance only got here half an hour
Joanne Lockwood: ago. I need to go to bed. I'm sorry, I can't come in today. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's random, isn't it? You've got no choice about
Joanne Lockwood: nobody else to deal with it. You just got to pick up that situation. And
Joanne Lockwood: so the childcare aspect, again, you can't say to your child, sorry,
Joanne Lockwood: don't throw up this morning because I've got a big meeting to do, deliver a
Joanne Lockwood: project today. I'm sorry, you got a temperature? What do I do? So we create
Joanne Lockwood: that stress, don't we? And again, we talk about things like psychological safety in the
Joanne Lockwood: workplace. You need to be able to talk about this challenges in your life,
Joanne Lockwood: otherwise you're just going to bottle it up. That's when you get burnout, stress, anxiety,
Joanne Lockwood: all those other things creeping. Exactly. And it's still typical that, you know,
Christine Boston: I had an example recently where, you know, there was a, you know,
Christine Boston: a friend kind of had a child off sick and so her
Christine Boston: husband kind of rang up the employer and said, I need to take the day
Christine Boston: off work, my child's off sick. And the employer said, well, can't your wife do
Christine Boston: it? You know, it's really typical and still of you
Christine Boston: today. Yeah. And we do have these, these gendered expectations. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's, that's, I think, what I said earlier. We've got to try and train our
Joanne Lockwood: younger adults, our younger children to start breaking
Joanne Lockwood: this now because once they become ingrained, it's really hard to, to rock that boat.
Joanne Lockwood: So if you're, if you're listening to this and you've got a young person who's
Joanne Lockwood: under 10 years old, now is the time to empower them both, not
Joanne Lockwood: just the girls, but empower the boys as well, to break this
Joanne Lockwood: BS of construct of gender. And that's kind of like another really good
Christine Boston: reason why I love women's football so much. I love that, you know,
Christine Boston: my son is watching women's football and, you know, they are role
Christine Boston: models for him. And so he's growing up with, you know, different views.
Christine Boston: And I'm really interested to see what these kind of, you know, younger generations
Christine Boston: coming through, what their attitudes are going to be and how they might shape
Christine Boston: equality in the workplace going forward. Fingers crossed. Christine, it's been absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. We've been yakking away now for over an hour. And how
Joanne Lockwood: do people get hold of you? How do people find out more? Well, you can
Christine Boston: Visit the website threeminuteleadership.com and there's lots of good
Christine Boston: content, articles, resources around leadership, culture and inclusion that
Christine Boston: they can access there or. I am Christine Boston on
Christine Boston: LinkedIn. Excellent. And I found you because I. That's what I
Joanne Lockwood: worked out, that we connected back in 2018. So, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Christine, thank you so much for your time. And if you're listening to this. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure you found this useful as well, so thank you very much. Brilliant.
Christine Boston: Thank you. It was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I kind of, you know,
Christine Boston: covered everything that I was hoping to get to.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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