Have we focused too much on numbers of women and not on changing society?

After a quarter of a century of EEO as debate and policy, it is time to reassess the way we have been looking at the issue. If, in this time, we have not made substantial and sustainable changes to the culture of workplaces, we need to work out whether there are other ways of approaching the problem which may be more effective.

Please don't assume that I am suggesting that in any way we weaken the current resources and legal sanctions. I am suggesting, however that we embed these into a wider debate on organisational cultures.

I want to put the proposal that we examine two other ways of talking about EEO in its workplace context or even its wider human rights claims. I want to suggest that current debates on civil corporation and ethical organisations may be the new take on this continuing problems.

So can feminists lead the debates on ethical organisations?

Background reading: Work in Progress - constructive feedback encouraged

These ideas are part of larger project am involved in which is attempting to define and measure ethical organisations by looking not just at what they do but how they are doing it. It is a feminist project because it challenges the ideas that organisational measures have to be outputs and outcomes. I am suggesting that it is the relationships and processes between people within and across groups that give us the best ways of assessing groupings and more formal organisations.

The shift I am proposing below to considering EO in an ethical framework is because I think that comparative pressure on rights for inclusion takes us only parts of the way, as it does not involve any debate on how the cultures and values need to be changed.

After all, we now have in Jane Holten a good example of how women can play the unethical power games of just following orders in the same way as men do. Remember Nuremberg?

Extract for discussion at chat 4/3:

"As part of a project to identify the characteristics of ethical processes in organisations, I am exploring how separate rights based issues like EEO may fit into this new debate. Starting from the assumption that an organisation is ethical if it is well intentioned towards the community at large, seeks to do well by its stakeholders, including by ensuring that the less powerful ones are treated fairly, we need explore how processes and relationships can sustain such behaviours within such organisations.

The ways in which organisations work both internally and externally will vary as they should reflect the mission of the organisation. however, there are common strands in the focus on assessing the ethical possibilities of organisational cultures. These will include people's expectations of fairness, high levels of trust, openness to new ideas, and capacities to deal with conflicts, change and other difficulties. Part of these factors has to be making sure that those affected by the organisation in employment, products, services or whatever are not harassed or discriminated against.

After a quarter of a century of EEO in debate and policy, I think it may be time to reassess the way we deal with the issues. In this time, we have made changes and increased the numbers of EEO target groups in more senior areas, but i contend we have not made substantial and sustainable changes to the culture of workplaces. More diversity at senior levels and in non traditional areas has made little difference to the very Anglo cultured masculinity that dominates these areas.

We need to work out whether there are other ways of approaching the problem which may be more effective. Please don't assume that I am suggesting that in any way we weaken the current resources and legal sanctions. I am suggesting, however that we embed these into a wider debate on organisational cultures.

The current debates on civil corporation and ethical organisations may be the new take we need on the remarkably stubborn continuing problems of discrimination.

It's easy to talk about culture change, but harder to achieve this. Even though this has been the core of many of the equal opportunity strategies with which we started these debates, including selling the idea of EEO on its ability to change the cultures of organisations. We even fell into the trap of selling women's participation in Senior Ranks as offering different, more caring models of leadership. We claimed that the institutional masculinity would be changed and out of this a fairer society would emerge from all!

However, the potential for revolution from within has failed to materialise, as entry into senior ranks was slow, and depended more on fitting women in that changing the cultures per se. Our next tack derived from the wider political shifts and we started to promote the business case for EEO. It was good for efficiency to make the best use of possible resources so it was a good idea for management to make sure that diversity was appropriately integrated. With Globalisation upon us too many Anglo faces may not have been a plus. Integrating other groups such as immigrants and indigenous ones and those with disabilities, made sense. It also saved money if it took some off the welfare rolls.

Can we say with any conviction in 200/2 that senior management has any wider appreciation of diversity of opinions, cultures and experiences? Or are we just supporting a system of EEO, which offers placement in jobs, particularly more senior ones, primarily on the basis of how well these 'outsiders' fit in? We can now see achievements in the careers of senior women in management who act very much the way men would. The older corporate cultures of white Anglo masculinity have colonised the EEO target groups to make sure they have been appropriately socialised and assimilated.

Now don't get me wrong, as an ex-boss of mine once said, EEO means as many senior female 'fuckwits' in top positions as male ones. On equity grounds therefore I support the proposition that each of the defined equity groups have equal rights to occupy the senior ranks and enjoy the privileges these offer. However, I am somewhat unfashionably still interested in working out how EEO can contribute to making organisations better and make policies and processes fairer. .

What do I mean by 'better'? This is obviously a contested concept but I have recently found ways of defining the concept in the context of an emerging debate on ethical organisations and organisational ethics. The recent interest in the private sector in defining corporate citizenship and socially responsible businesses involves some exploring of additional measures that the usual limits of the financial bottom line. My particular involvement has been in what are called social and ethical auditing, a third bottom line to add to the financial and environmental.

I am not naive about this interest as it is not necessarily a product of more good will on behalf of big business. Much of its development has been driven by recognition that big business was in trouble as transnational corporations and local businesses found naked greed and competition were damaging their markets and reputations. Brand development and problems with communities opposing their 'licence to operate' may have triggered some of the debate, but the actions of groups like the Body Shop raised interesting issues about possible compatibility of commerce and citizenship.

It is in this arena that I think we can reconstruct the EEO debates. If EEO is embedded as an essential constituent of the modes of practice of ethical organisations, it must also involve debates about some construction of the common good, not just the benefit to individuals.

So I want to suggest that EEO practitioners should be exploring ways in which the idea of an ethical organisation, validated by a social and ethical audit, could progress a re-evaluation of EEO. This also involves recognition that diversity as well as debate and change are the core of capacity building and resilience ie the socially sustainable institution and create more civil corporations, public services and not-for-profit groups."

Eva Cox