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This is the second article of a two-part series for Women’s History Month exploring the role of and challenges facing women driving sustainability in fashion. Read part one here.
As sustainability regulations mount and pressure grows to move beyond performative diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) strategies, the fashion industry is seeking ways to tie progress in these areas to wider business goals. Cue a mounting debate about whether there should be more women — according to some, the more empathetic and value-driven of the genders — in leadership roles. But is that perception also holding the industry back?
“Women are perceived as the ones that are emotionally connected to an idea or a cause, but men are [regarded as] the ones that are going to figure out how to make it profitable,” says Aurora James, founder of fashion label Brother Vellies — which preserves and creates jobs for artisans in the Global South — and non-profit 15 Percent Pledge, created in 2020 to support Black-owned businesses.
To mark Women’s History Month, Vogue Business spoke to a number of female leaders in the industry to determine whether their gender — and perceptions of the attributes they hold as a result of being women — is a help or a hindrance as we move into a new, purpose-driven era of business. Opinion was divided: some said they were driven by purpose and personal values, while others said they measured success through more traditional metrics, such as turnover and profit.
What both groups had in common, though, was that their business skills had been underestimated. Gender stereotypes are holding back women from being perceived as more business oriented, and therefore more able to drive meaningful progress on sustainability.
The false dichotomy between values as emotional and therefore feminine-coded, and business as logical and therefore masculine-coded, is based on a long history of gender stereotypes. “It’s a stereotype that a woman’s purpose is to help support others and be good stewards to their community, whereas men’s purpose is to reach their individual goals,” says Subira Jones, burnout expert and founder of management consultancy The Fireproof Career. “Women who are drawn to the corporate world tend to have traits like competitiveness and the ability to get things done, which are seen as traditionally masculine traits.”
Whether it’s through nature or nurture, women do seem more concerned with sustainability and social impact. On the consumer side, research firm Mintel found that 71 per cent of women are increasing their commitment to ethical living compared to 59 per cent of men, and according to the European Investment Bank, women investors have a stronger preference for ESG factors and a better chance of accelerating climate solutions.
Climate change also disproportionately affects women: according to the UN, 80 per cent of people displaced by climate change are women. It’s particularly prominent in the fashion industry — women are the biggest consumers of fashion, but also the biggest makers. Around 80 per cent of garment workers globally are women working in low-paid and potentially exploitative positions, according to Fashion Revolution.
Female representation in executive teams is good for business. According to McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity in their executive teams are 39 per cent more likely to financially outperform. In particular, representation across ethical and value-driven roles — such as chief people officer, chief human resources officer or chief sustainability officer — have proven to be important for boosting women into the C-suite, with chief sustainability officer and chief human resources officer among the few C-suite roles with gender parity.
The problem is that, within the C-suite, women are less likely to hold roles with profit and loss responsibility, budgets and the influence to materially impact business decisions such as CEO or CFO — jobs that are also the best paid. Representation for women of colour is even lower in the C-suite. And recent reports show that when women are appointed to CEO, their tenure is typically much shorter.
“There are a lot of women who think it’s nicer to sit just below the glass ceiling, because if I stick my head up, there are all these pressures. Many successful women feel that they can find a [lower] position in an organisation where they can have more balance,” says Christin Owings, director and partner in the people and organisation practice at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
“Removing the barriers [women] face in accessing leadership roles would enable them to unleash their fullest potential and bring innovative ideas to the table, including in the areas of social impact and sustainability, where many women are already leading the change,” says Sue Fox, president of Estée Lauder Companies UK and Ireland.
Why are women considered more value-driven?
The reason women are considered more ethical or value-driven is due to the gender roles that associate them with emotions and community. In reality, studies show that there’s no truth to the common stereotype that women’s emotions fluctuate more than men’s. The difference is in how particular emotions manifest and are perceived.
While the negative association with feminine-coded traits may be holding women back from business positions, experts say some of these traits are actually essential to being a good leader.
BCG has been conducting research on leadership styles over the past few years and found that successful leaders need to have a combination of head (problem solving and vision), heart (inspiring a workforce) and hands (execution).
“When we look across organisations, we see there’s definitely leaders doing well on the head and also quite well on the hands, but the piece that’s missing in most organisations is heart, being able to lead with empathy,” says Owings. “Organisations that are better at delivering on heart also deliver better outcomes, so it’s clearer now than ever that you need the emotional elements of leadership as well.” She adds that mothers have been sidelined for fears that they won’t be able to balance their home life and career, but motherhood is a valuable lesson in emotional intelligence, time management and prioritisation — skills essential to being a leader.
Business beyond values
While there may be a correlation between emotional intelligence and a concern for the environment, emotions and business ethics aren’t necessarily the same, says Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering chief sustainability and institutional affairs officer. “I haven’t seen a split between men and women when we are speaking about ethics, I think it’s a very personal thing that depends on their own conviction,” she says. “I think it’s better not to [lean into this stereotype] because to change the paradigm of sustainability you need to be sure that people at all levels are involved, and we want to be sure women can take the same level of responsibility.”
For Daveu, emotion is not a big part of sustainability, but it’s an important source of inspiration. “Sustainability isn’t an emotion, it’s about facts, figures and implementing concrete problem-solving. It’s very technical,” she explains. “But emotion is not negative, it’s a very positive energy to have. Through emotion you can say ‘I don’t accept the situation’ so it’s a way to be motivated and to have the willingness to change.”
That sense of balance is key, because presenting ethics-driven topics like sustainability, social impact and diversity and inclusion as solely emotions-driven runs the risk of them not being taken seriously. That’s why it’s important to present them as business drivers rather than business costs. “It needs to be seen as a business case, not a nice-to-have add-on, which means resources need to be dedicated and roles assigned clearly,” says Jones. This is especially important as women and minorities disproportionately take on additional work like employee engagement and ethics committees, she adds.
Burning out or bowing out
Among the biggest challenges to improving representation of women in leadership is the potential for burnout. When women feel “disengaged and disenfranchised” because of the double standards they face, they’re more likely to burnout, Jones says.
In particular, those who work in sustainability or other ethical or purpose-driven areas are often not set up for success within the company culture. “In sustainability, we digest all this information all the time about how the world is on fire and then show up in boardrooms and present the numbers and metrics, the compliance, paperwork — it can take an energetic toll,” says Hannah Phang, co-founder of sustainability talent platform The Now Work.
Female leaders also say they’re held to higher standards than men, and judged more harshly if they make errors. “You need to over deliver. The standards are so harsh on women,” says Federica Marchionni, CEO of non-profit Global Fashion Agenda. “Women do not have the opportunity to make mistakes the same way as men. If a man makes a mistake or they lose their job, there is a new opportunity very easily because there is this ‘boys club’ of support. It’s already really hard for women to get to the C-suite, but if you lose it, it’s almost impossible to come back.” This is a huge limitation for retention, too.
Ageism doubles this effect. “The moment a woman reaches a certain age, their experience is not valued. When men reach a certain age they’re still seen as important, but a woman that is the same age can be replaced by younger men,” says Marchionni. The reason for this is often tied to the way women are judged by their appearance rather than their experience, she says. “I’m happy to say I’m going to be 53 this year, but if I wanted to change my job my age would be judged in a different way from if I was a man.”
The first step to begin working through these pressures is to talk to high-potential women about their fears and ambitions. “The first thing is realising what those pressures are, and having the conversation about what’s holding women back,” says Owings. “The allyship element is still very important, and the first thing is for men to educate themselves around the struggles women go through, what’s holding them back and why they might not put their hand up.”
It ultimately relies on top leadership teams and boards to shift the dial, both in terms of the number of women who are offered positions and in terms of developing a culture that isn’t based on gendered double standards. “Women have to dare to take more responsibility in the C-suite in roles such as finance and business,” says Daveu. “Top management at companies need to offer access to these positions to more qualified women and have a more fair competition towards these positions.”
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