Season 1 (OLD FORMAT) - From Working Girl to Gender Bias Coach

 This episode is part of our first season, which focused on gender bias in the corporate world. The show has since evolved to be about women on the front lines of social justice.

Welcome to the debut episode of Working Girl! In this solo episode, I share my journey of confronting gender bias in the workplace and how it inspired me to become a gender bias coach.

From hitting my breaking point in a male-dominated environment to initiating positive change by addressing bias with my boss, I dig into the transformative power of speaking up.

Throughout the episode, I emphasize the importance of support, validation, and allies in combating gender bias. With a mission to empower women and foster open dialogue, I can't wait for you to join the conversation.

If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. And share it with your fellow working women!

Transcript

0:02

Hey everyone, I am so, so excited to welcome you to the first episode of my new podcast, Working Girl. My goal for this podcast is to provide a safe space to talk about gender bias in the workplace. It is an all too prevalent and pervasive issue that I am extremely confident every single woman has faced, whether they realize it or not. Why am I so confident? Because the UN reports that 9 in 10 people around the world are biased against women. And that includes women. It's a systemic issue that has existed since the beginning of time. And frankly, I am tired of it. It wreaks havoc on the working world, especially. And if you think about it, it makes sense, considering the labor rights movement didn't actually happen that long ago. While women have always worked in one way or another, whether they were welcome and respected. While women have always worked in one way or another, whether they were welcome and respected was another thing altogether. The Working Girl podcast will rarely have just me talking. But I thought I'd kick us off with a solo episode just to give a little bit of backstory on my experiences with gender bias and what led me to become a gender bias coach. So let me set the scene. There I was, a daughter of the girl boss and lean in generation. The nice girls don't get the corner office generation. A young woman so desperate to make a name for myself that I literally couldn't remember the last time I had gotten more than four hours of sleep. All around me, men were effortlessly. All around me, men were effortlessly climbing the corporate ladder, and I was being sidelined, silenced, and second-guessed. I knew it was. I knew I was in a world built by men for men. So I dug my heels in. I grit my teeth. I told myself absolutely nothing would get in my way, come hell or high water. I would, quote unquote, make it. So I hustled. I pushed. I fought my way to the top. Honestly, I shudder at the number of times I proclaimed the words blood, sweat, and tears like they were a badge of honor. And to be honest, it's more like burnout, sacrifice, and trauma. And you know what? None of that was enough. It wasn't until one day I finally hit my breaking point. I was in a boys club at work. And don't get me wrong, they were all well-meaning guys. But it just felt like I was constantly hitting a wall and I felt completely alone. I couldn't put my finger on the issues I was having or why they were so hard for me to deal with. It felt impossible to explain the situation because my frustrations were so intangible. One night, a particular conversation with one of them left me in tears. I truly was on the verge of quitting. Out of desperation, I started Googling some of the experiences I had. Out of desperation, I started Googling some of the experiences I was having just to see if others had experienced them, too. To be honest, I really just wanted to know, like, am I losing my mind? Am I being overly sensitive? Am I being too emotional? Insert whatever female stereotype you want. I was really starting to doubt whether what I was going through was actually happening in the way I thought it was. But suddenly I was inundated with article after article and blog posts and documentaries and actual research that had been done on these very issues. It turns out, not only did others have these experiences, but there was a name for it. Gender bias. Think of this like my Oprah aha moment. It was an absolute game changer. I spent the entire night writing a personal essay to my boss about gender bias and how devastating its effects were. I scheduled a meeting with him and I told him I had written this personal essay and I would like to read it to him. I'm going to go ahead and add a little interjection here that I was very fortunate to have an amazing male boss at the time. He was exactly the kind of male boss you would want in this situation, which I had not always had. So I'm extremely grateful that he was the boss I was reading this to. And even though he was great, I was still so nervous. I mean, you can imagine, right? This is not something that we're all out here doing. I had never heard of anyone doing something like this before. I just had hit my breaking point, you know, like I literally could not take it anymore. And it probably didn't help my anxiety levels that this was in the peak of COVID quarantine. And I just remember leading up to this call. I mean, I was really freaking out. It really honestly didn't even mean anything to me or matter in the moment that he was such an amazing male boss because, well, it was nerve-wracking. Like, who does this? Why am I doing this? I remember that my husband was sitting near me at the time, and he was just like, babe, I'm so proud of you, but at the same time, I'm so terrified for you. Like, who knows how this could possibly go? But I trusted my gut. I trusted my intuition. So I pushed forward and I remember I was shaking so hard holding my paper that I literally had to lower my hands off camera so that my boss wouldn't see. And I read this like three or four page personal essay start to finish. It included research and data. It included personal stories, it included things from other women in our department and what they had gone through. And, you know, I'd honestly made a point of not putting any names because it wasn't about trying to point fingers or get anyone in trouble. It was more that I was desperate to raise this issue because I felt like it was so rampant, but no one was talking about it. Luckily, he was incredibly receptive. He made me feel validated and supported. He really, really listened, honestly. And he genuinely cared. To this day, I think that his reaction and his subsequent commitment to change within the organization is what really acted as a catalyst for me and my belief that things really can change. After a career of gender bias and sexual harassment and sexual discrimination and just like outright horrible, horrible experiences. My faith that change could happen had been bleak. And don't get me wrong, I'm telling all of you to... And don't get me wrong, I'm not telling all of you to go write essays to your bosses because that would likely end very badly for a lot of you, unfortunately. But I am saying that it showed me the importance of support and validation. and the importance of allies. It also showed me that I have more work to do. I didn't want to just stop there solely because things got better for me. And it even went beyond that, right? Like I was looking at the positive changes that were rippling from this action I had taken for the women within our team. And I thought, why can't I help the women within this company? And then from there, I thought, why can't I help women outside of this company, this experience is not just for me. I mean, the research quite literally showed that every woman experiences this, whether they realize it or not. And it just made me have a hunger for wanting to help as many women as possible. And if I'm being honest, it kind of falls in line with who I am as a person. I've always been someone who really wanted to be part of change and doing good and helping others. I remember when I was really little, I was always someone that wanted to do good and be part of change and help other people. In fact, I remember as a child, I used to tell people that I wanted to start a nonprofit one day. And people thought that was so cute for like a 10-year-old, but I really meant it. In college, I would spend time thinking about what kind of nonprofit I would start. You know, fortunately, later on in my adult years, I realized, like, there are already so many amazing people doing really great work and a lot of really incredible nonprofits. The world didn't really need another nonprofit from a white lady, but I was still yearning for a way to have an actual, positive, tangible impact. And earlier in my career, this started to translate a lot more because as I was going through a lot of these issues, I was always wishing that there had been someone that I could go to. And I never really felt that. Like I had women that I admired or women that could help me that was specific to the field I was in. But I never really felt like there was a woman above me who was bold enough to stand up and show up and tackle these issues head on and honestly that did require them to be in a position of power and especially after all the experiences and research I've been part of I know for a fact that so many women once you get to that position of power you don't really want to rock the boat because you're like hey it took me so long and it was so much work just to get to this point I'm not trying to ruffle feathers and you know challenge the patriarchy which I understand but It still left me yearning for that, because as I was moving up in my career, I just kept thinking if there was someone who was paving the road ahead of me, then I would know what to do. But I just never really found her. I mean, and I think probably a lot of you can relate to this, maybe less now in 2024, because so many more people are talking about these kinds of things, because diversity and inclusion are definitely hot topics right now, especially in the working world. I know for many of us, this has been something that we could have all used and wanted for a very long time. I was repeating these complaints to a friend once who works in tech. And I was just saying, like, oh, my God, you know, why? Why don't we have a woman who's just like charging forward and challenging the status quo and isn't afraid to step on toes? And my friend just looked at me really blankly and was like, What are you talking about? And so I pushed forward. I was like, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean? What am I talking about? What are you talking about? Don't you want that? Isn't that something you think women would so desperately deserve and would help so many people? And she was like, yeah, I do. She was like, I'm asking, what are you talking about? Because have you looked in the mirror? And we kind of digressed into this conversation. And that kind of segued into this really awesome conversation where she really helped me realize that that very thing I'd been yearning for, that very woman I was looking for, I was already embodying a lot of those same traits that I was seeking. And the more I thought about it, I realized how many younger, more junior level women had been coming to me throughout my career for those very same things. They were seeing me do that. And they were saying, hey, what would you do in this situation? Hey, how can I handle this issue with my male boss? Hey, what would you have said in this conversation? Or they would just ask me for kind of blanket advice or guidance on being a working woman. And I guess just because when you're in it, you don't realize like, I'm not someone that sits there and it's just like counting my receipts of all the people who have come to me for advice. Um, You know, like I'm not sitting here thinking like, wow, look at me. I am so impressive with all these women wanting to hear what I have to say. I just was helping people in real time. And when I look back and really thought about it and kind of connected the dots, I realized that I had kind of been positioning myself as this woman that other women could come to. And this was really another light bulb moment because suddenly all of those years I had spent frustrated and fighting and crying and blood, sweat and tearing. All of those things were suddenly given purpose. And I'm not going to say I became the gender bias coach overnight. I certainly did not. It required a much more intentional step forward. Right? It wasn't me just being a female professional, offering advice as much as I could, and just kind of picking it all up as I go. Suddenly, I gave myself this mission. And I realized I need to create a plan. I need to figure out what is the trajectory? What is the path forward in order to actually achieve this mission? Right? If I want to have a mission of creating a movement of women who are combating gender bias in the workplace, what does that look like? That's such a broad, you know, cloud in the sky kind of dream. I don't think that's actually the right phrase, but we're going to go with it because I can't remember the correct one. But just, it just felt so far reaching, right? If you tell anyone, oh yeah, my mission is to build a nationwide movement of women taking on gender bias at work. They'd be like, what? What does that mean? What does that look like? What are you doing? And I was a nobody, right? I'm not a Brene Brown. I'm not an Oprah. I'm not a Michelle Obama. I don't have the influence and the reach to be able to create some sort of movement in a short period of time. So I got to work. I started doing tons and tons of research. I wanted to be data driven. I wanted to be backed by science. I wanted to really understand multiple sides of this issue. I wanted to understand the history, right? I knew enough, I thought, about the labor rights movement and the fight that the women before us had gone through to get to this point. But I decided to really dig in, almost become like a mini historian. I really wanted to dig into what the labor rights movement entailed. What were they really fighting for? Who were the groups and the people that really stood out? What were the things that they got wrong? For example, the labor rights movement often left out people of color, right? A lot of times the feminist movement would tell the civil rights movement women, you know, yeah, your cause is important too, but you know, if we, if we kind of dilute the message and suddenly start bringing in the issues of people of color, like then our message isn't as strong. And I thought that was just horrible, right? Obviously now we have hindsight. and we can see just how horrible it really was. But that's when I started really digging into intersectional feminism. I started digging into, yeah, my experience as a white working woman has been really horrible. But what are the privileges I have as a white working woman that women of color don't have? How much harder is their experience as a working woman? I also just started digging into the data, right? When we talk about the gender pay gap, What is the gender pay gap, really? What is it caused by? You know, is it actually that if you take a man and a woman and they have the exact same job, is that company literally paying the woman less? Right. And that's what is the gender pay gap. Or is it more something that's along the lines of, well, women are being kind of penalized inadvertently for when they become mothers or they take time off for being a mother and that decreases their overall earnings over time and that's what's contributing to the pay gap. Is it all of those things? Is it a hundred other things I haven't mentioned? Probably. Right. I started doing all of this research. I also started digging into all of the lessons and messages that working women had been told up until this point and started really questioning and challenging Was it real? Was it accurate? Was it really the message that I still believed in? You know, I mentioned at the beginning talking about Lean In and Girlboss. At the time when I was reading those books, they really did have a profound and positive impact on me. But looking back, I wonder how much of that was centered around hustle culture or acting more like men to fit into a man's world. And suddenly, those messages didn't really fit with my values or beliefs anymore. I didn't necessarily agree with that being the way women were seeking success, or that it had to be the only way women were seeking success. And so essentially, all of this came together for me to really try to figure out what is my message? Who am I speaking to? Why does it matter? And why should women care? And all of that work is what helped bring me to becoming the gender bias coach and creating a true plan for how we can tackle this. And now, you know, I'd like to say that I'm here to guide you in unapologetically getting what you want at work. Because I really do think that together we can turn the tide toward true workplace equality by dismantling biases and empowering you to reclaim your rightful place at the table with confidence, courage, and conviction. And shoot, if you don't even want a seat at the table, get your own room. Whatever you want, but reclaiming your place in your career the way you want it, the way you deserve it. So now we have Working Girl, a podcast that has been a lot of bad experiences in the making. But I'm so excited because this is a chance to really help end the stigma around talking about these issues, but in a safe and supportive place. So the podcast for me is just one kind of small part of my mission, because really there are so many different ways to navigate, combat and tackle gender bias. But one of the big things I've noticed is that just we aren't talking about it. Right. In fact, And any content I create, LinkedIn, which you would think would probably be the strongest area for engagement because that's literally where working women are interacting with other working women. LinkedIn is actually my least active on the engagement side. And I think it's just because women are afraid to be seen talking about or talking with or engaging with this type of content in front of colleagues or employers. It's still so taboo. And then on top of that, you know, data shows how critical support and validation are for your mental health, right? You need support and validation for your experiences and for your feelings to be able to truly function at an optimal level from a mental and emotional health side. And if we're not talking about it, then our experiences and feelings most definitely are not being validated and they're then definitely not being supported because how can it be supported if we're not talking to anyone about it? And it can be hard because we don't want to talk to friends. We don't want to overburden them. It can also be challenging talking to friends or family because they may have outdated views. They may also just not relate, right? Like it might be a woman that you're friends with that is like, Oh yeah, that's so hard. But she may not truly get it because she's not in STEM, she's not in your field, or she doesn't know how difficult your boss is. And so it can be hard to get support that doesn't feel relatable to your actual experience sometimes. That's why each week I will be interviewing an anonymous woman to talk about her experiences and her lessons learned from dealing with gender bias at work. This will allow us to start hearing these stories that are so important. And my goal is obviously for listeners to find them incredibly relatable and to find validation from them. But I also love that the women who will be telling their stories will also be getting a chance to use their voice and speak out on their story. In fact, for some of the women I'm interviewing, this is the first time they're telling anyone about this experience that they've had. Which kind of segues nicely into why are they anonymous? Well, like I said, I truly want this to be a safe space. I want women to feel like they can speak their truth without fear of anything getting back to their colleagues or to their companies. So that's why it's important they remain anonymous. They'll give a little bit of background, right? They'll say maybe the industry they're in or a little bit about their background to provide context on their experiences, but they'll never say their name. Much like a support group or, you know, maybe other groups like AA or NA, it's important to protect privacy, especially when talking about really hard, difficult, traumatic issues. And people deserve respect and a place to openly be able to talk about these things without fear of it coming back to bite them later. In addition to anonymous guests, once a month, we will also have on an expert to talk about their methods for dealing with gender bias. These are women who have not only been through the corporate ringer themselves, but they are the ones who have tried and true strategies that you can use right away. So make sure you stay tuned. All new episodes are coming every Tuesday. I am so excited to have you be a part of this journey with me. I really cannot tell you how exciting this is to begin having these conversations. I am so honored, not only to the women who are bravely and candidly speaking up, using their voice to share their stories, But I am honored to have you listening to be spending your precious, precious time to hear my podcast and also the fact that you're giving these women a chance to share their story. I'm honored that these experts are coming on, that they're shining a light on how horrible gender bias can be and how their particular skills or expertise can really help improve your situation and your careers. And I really am just so excited to see this grow. So please, please, I want to hear from you. If you are enjoying the episodes or maybe you have a similar story and you just want to let me know, hey, this episode really resonated with me because of blah, blah, blah. Or I had a similar experience. Please feel that you can always message me. You can either email me at info at Rachel Impala dot com, or you can send me a quick DM on either LinkedIn or Instagram or TikTok or really anywhere. I also have a contact form on my website, www.rachelempala.com. And if you're interested in being a guest, whether that's an anonymous guest or as an expert, please make sure to go through the website, www.rachelempala.com slash podcast. I am so excited. Like I said, I know I keep saying it, but I really am that excited. I hope you enjoy. and