Fon Mathuros, Head of Media, World Economic Forum: Tel.: +41 (0)79 201 0211; Email: fma@weforum.org
· To effectively challenge sexual harassment, women must be put in positions of power
· Stemming sexual harassment requires a collaborative effort among governments, businesses and civil society to redefine leadership
· The 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is taking place on 23-26 January in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, under the theme Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World
· For more information www.weforum.org
Davos, Switzerland, 23 January 2018 – Stemming sexual harassment is a global issue that requires collaboration between the public and private sectors to empower women, agreed a panel of leaders in government, business and civil society in a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018. The session was co-created and moderated by the New York Times. The panel of experts discussed behavioural and social changes that are most effective in fighting abuses of power and sexual harassment.
“This is not an issue that one sector can challenge and tackle and resolve. It is not up to the NGOs to do this work alone, it is not up to governments to do this work alone, nor is it for the private sector to do this work alone,” Maryam Monsef, Minister of Status of Women of Canada, told participants. “The only way that we are going to be able to get there is if it’s a cross-sectoral approach, if it’s intergenerational, multicultural, multi-faith.”
While the #MeToo movement has certainly brought renewed attention to this topic, panellists agreed that sexual harassment, power imbalance and abuses of power are not new, and affect women worldwide. “We interviewed hotel housekeepers in the Dominican Republic, in Thailand and in Canada, developed and developing [countries]. All of them told us that they had faced sexual harassment or known someone who had faced sexual harassment,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International.
Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, argued that power corrupts men more than women, which can lead to abuses of power in the workplace. For men, power tends to amplify their tendencies to sexualize interactions, which can lead to abuses of power. For women, power tends to enhance their tendency to be more collaborative. While progress has been made towards more collaborative models of leadership, Keltner underlined that “our concepts of who should be a leader are lagging behind.”
A critical first step to address sexual violence and exploitation, according to Byanyima, is to disrupt traditional power imbalances and put women in leadership positions. “Powerless people cannot challenge sexual exploitation and abuse,” said Byanyima. “That’s important first, to shift power, to give women power in institutions.”
If women are to be empowered in the workplace, leadership qualities must be redefined. Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice-President, Business Development, Microsoft Corporation, agreed that businesses should highlight leadership characteristics such as collaboration and empathy to expand the notion of who a leader could be. “I think for too long we were weighted towards the more aggressive [qualities] and so, if you had those, then you were put into positions of power; and, if you didn’t have those, you weren’t, and that affected females far more than men.”
There is a business angle to this argument, too, said Johnson. In an era when social media is amplifying voices and causes, millennials are increasingly “choosing their companies because of their purpose, the reason the company is existing.” As a statement to their employees and consumer base, Microsoft recently removed language from its employee contracts that forced private arbitration in sexual harassment cases, lifting a barrier that once silenced claims of abuse of power.
One concrete action that can help redefine leadership is changing the way women are represented in the media. “If you can’t see her, you can’t be her,” said Lisa Sherman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Advertising Council. “Images in the past were perpetuating stereotypes. I think now there is a real pressure for that content to reflect the reality that women are very diverse in every way, and we should continue to put positive, empowering images of women out there.”
“There need to be more women in power. Both the private sector and the government need to do their part,” summarized Elisabeth Bumiller, Washington Bureau Chief, New York Times.
The World Economic Forum’s 48th Annual Meeting is taking place on 23-26 January 2018 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. More than 3,000 leaders from around the world are gathering in a collaborative effort to shape the global, regional and industry agendas, with a commitment to improve the state of the world.
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