Inside Out Culture
Cath Bishop and Colin Ellis - two people who have been at the heart of workplace culture for over 3 decades host a regular podcast that offers an insider’s view on culture and provides tangible actions that you can take on the outside.
As best-selling authors and consultants who work with cultures around the world, they not only talk about what's happening in the world of work right now, but also provide evidence and commentary to help you change the way you do things too.
From kindness to toxicity, from values to high-performance, Cath and Colin discuss a breadth of topics relevant to the way work gets done. Both are keen to help leaders, managers and colleagues gain competence and confidence to contribute more positively and proactively to their workplace environments.
Please do send in your questions for Cath and Colin to answer. You can email them at insideoutculture@gmail.com or message them on LinkedIn.
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Inside Out Culture
Misogyny in Music: A Culture Clarion Call for all Organisations
The UK Government's recent report into the music industry culture uncovered systemic sexism and misogyny.
It found that women in the music industry have had their lives ruined and their careers destroyed by the actions of men determined to hold onto the power that they have.
In this episode of the Inside Out Culture podcast we examine the findings of the report and talk about cultural norms, behaviours and the steps that all organisations need to take to eradicate misogyny in the workplace.
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Join us as we reveal strategies to close the gap and craft a workplace where values are not just spoken, but lived and breathed, paving the way for a more authentic and engaging organisational culture.
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Welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast, where we look at insides of working culture and provide ideas, insights and actions for you to take on the outside. I'm Colin Ellis and I'm Cath.
Cath:Bishop, and in each episode we'll examine a different question or a different organization, and we'll use case studies, research and our own insights and experiences to help you change the way things get done in your world.
Colin:We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please like, subscribe and, of course, let us know what you think.
Colin:Hello everybody welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast. I'm Colin Ellis and I'm Cath Bishop, and this week we'll be answering the question Cath. And this week we'll be answering the question Cath how has misogyny become so rife in the music industry? So maybe we can start, as we always do, with a little bit of a background to the story, Cath, if you wouldn't mind giving us where we are at the minute.
Cath:Yes. So we're looking at the music industry and the spotlight has come on to them because of a report that came out just over a week ago around misogyny in music, and this was a report by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee. That is going in pretty hard and has got some pretty difficult stories, challenging, horrific, tragic stories from women working in the music industry. And when they look across a whole range of issues, they talk about how women working in the music industry face limitations in opportunity, a lack of support, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and assault and the persistent issue of unequal pay in a sector that's dominated by self-employment and one that has gendered power imbalances. So it talks about all of the fact that these issues are endemic, that they are intensified for women, particularly those with intersectional barriers, particularly the racial discrimination coming in on top of existing barriers for women, and they look at some different scenarios where it plays out and really affects the women kind of worst, and the impact of non-disclosure agreements, these NDAs on victims of discrimination, harassment and abuse means that victims you know women working in the industry who already have faced all sorts of challenging situations they then can't even tell their story. They've got nowhere to go. They are, in effect, silenced, and that's what this report does. It gives a voice to those stories that have been hidden for a very long time, and it's such uncomfortable reading but, of course, so important to do that.
Cath:They look a lot at the fact that it's often seen as a women's behavioural issue. You know the women, the victims, it's their problem, when, of course, it's the behaviour of men to use the language they use. You know which is what's sitting at the heart of the problem here. Harassment, discrimination, misogyny are often seen as women's issues. That needs to change. And they talk a lot about the importance of education. There are some sort of systemic changes, but this is societal. This is huge and within that industry, of course, it runs very deep.
Colin:Great, yeah. When I read the report Cal this is a really great summary. By the way, you know, what struck me most of all was just how endemic it was, and I think there'll be people listening to the podcast who will probably see elements of what we talk about in their cultures as well, which we want to get to. We want to get to our three points at the end to really help people. But the key thing for me, one of the things that I pulled out of the report, was that they said we're focused on improving protections and reporting mechanisms and unnecessary structural and legislative reforms, and I always think that's the first place. Now, whether it's government legislation, whether it's policy, internal policy within organizations, that's the first place that they go to Right, well, let's make sure that the reporting is good, and it's very easy for women to report when they've been victims of this, but what it goes on to say so on necessary structural and legislative reforms, the main problem at the heart of the music industry is none of these. So they talk about the fact that, yes, they're going to strengthen these, but the main problem, the root cause, is none of these. It is the behavior of men, and it is almost always men. More often than not, women are left with the expectation that they will be able to enact change, while being hindered by men who do not wish to amend their ways. So I think that's important to understand and what I'm just going to go on to explain for men listening to it, because you know, there's a lot of men often when I talk about these things like, oh, I feel like the problem is always men. I feel like you're always pointing the finger at men and then you get these comments. It's like, oh, there's some good men. It's like, yeah, get all of that. But yes, and yes, it's a social problem. You mentioned it there in your introduction. But we've all got a responsibility as part of that and we can't hide behind that. Well, there's a few good men and, oh, you know, it's not all men. It's like, well, kind of, if it's one man, it's all men, unfortunately in relation to culture.
Colin:And so Kate Mann wrote this really great book called Down Girl the Logic of Misogyny.
Colin:And so if you're really looking to educate yourself on what misogyny is, and she argues that misogyny is not about kind of hatred towards women, it's not about hostility, it's about kind of controlling women or kind of almost punishing not physically but punishing women who kind of challenge the way that men have done things.
Colin:And so she says that sexism is the ideology that says these arrangements just make sense. So, for example, women are more caring, they're more nurturing, they're more empathetic, they're more motherly in the way that they go about things, which is only true, she says, if you prime people by getting them to identify with their gender. So sexism is the ideology that supports patriarchal social relations, but misogyny enforces it when there's a threat of the system going away. And so this is one of the things that I've talked about. I'm sure you've talked about it, Cath, in terms of gender diversity in businesses is that until you see equal representation at the very top of the organization and you see that that equal representation has led to a change in the way that work gets done and the perceptions of gender, it's only then that you really start to see the change, and men have to be part of that.
Cath:Yeah, exactly, and that's the conversation we want to have. I love how you pull out those points there about actually what do we mean by misogyny? Are we making some assumptions about what it is and what it isn't? So we actually have to start at that level about thinking what's this really about? The other sort of thing that comes out there in this report very strongly is we can't just pass a law, we can't just change a structure, create a role. I mean, they have got this sort of standards body that's being set up, but that is never enough, and I think that's one of the core themes through all of these topics.
Cath:We look at Real deep culture changes about changing mindsets, beliefs, behaviors, the norms that occur around us, and we need to really start noticing and understanding those so norms. These are the things I talk about a lot, working with organizations. What are the norms around here? What do we mean by that? It's the accepted standard ways of behaving, doing things that most people agree with. So these are standards that govern behavior. They're not always written down and in fact, it's often these informal expectations around them that are really, really powerful.
Cath:Nobody has written in these music industries that this is the way to behave, but everyone knows this is how you behave, and we need to sort of understand that. It's at that level that change has to happen. That means we have to start talking about behaviours, noticing behaviours, actually becoming aware of our own behaviours, not just our intentions, but our actual behaviours and the impact that they have on others. Again, it's not enough to say I'm not intending that women feel like this. Clearly it is on such a scale that there are many good people who are behaving in a way, though that has a really detrimental impact. And until we start having that conversation, we're just kind of fiddling with deck chairs by changing a policy here or a structure here. So it's getting to this deep level that is so important and having that conversation, that uncomfortable conversation around it too.
Colin:Do you think part of the problem, Cath, is that part of the problem? Or I guess let's put a positive frame on it. The opportunity that people have is to see norms as things that can be changed. I often feel in my work there are plenty of people who approach me and they want to talk about culture change, they want to talk about transformation, but it just feels hard to do. You know, for you know, most people listening to this podcast will think oh yeah, we, you know we. We definitely have had instances of sexual harassment. We've had instances of people demeaning women in their language, but we just don't know where to start. It feels when you talk about norms I completely agree but it feels so interwoven into everything that they do that they almost they almost don't get started because it feels too hard to start. Does that make sense?
Cath:It's funny, isn't it? It's a paradox, because norms of behavior are something we're all all of us aware of and yet we don't have them scheduled in our meetings. We don't. You know, often what we're doing is coming in to facilitate discussions around these things, to bring what are sort of unconscious under the surface, above the surface. So I think, yeah, people need some help having those conversations because we don't learn to have them at school. And, in fact, there's a really interesting part of the report that looks at the issues that are coming at a school education level and that thisist language, behaviours and attitudes persisted unchallenged. That's the 2021 Ofsted report. So this is responsibility of parents. This isn't just a workplace issue either. It's a social issue, and so it's bringing something like norms that can feel.
Cath:It's not a number we put in a spreadsheet, it's not a sort of neat task that we put in our to-do list. It's about human behavior. We need to just bring that topic into the workplace. It's happening we turn up to a meeting, we behave in a certain way, we have a conversation, we behave a certain way, we're problem solving, we behave in a certain way, but the behavior bit doesn't get talked about. That's where we've got to make some shifts. So I think you know it is facilitating those conversations, making sure that we've got space to tell the stories of the workplace, rather than seeing it as some robotic, machine-like place where we're just kind of counting numbers and inputs and outputs and things.
Cath:You know, I think that that dehumanization of our organizations for decades now is sort of set us up for this space. And, yeah, it needs a retraining, it needs re-educating, it needs a sort of shifting of patterns. In a way it's exciting because it's not like we don't all behave as human beings. So this is the paradox Like in one way it's simple, but in another way of course it's not easy because we haven't got the patterns in our work lives to really look at this stuff. But once you open it up, it's what makes life worth living, it's what we remember about our jobs, is how others make us feel. So it's the most natural thing in the world. And then you go why have we made it so unnatural? Yeah, how do you find it when you're facilitating these sorts of discussions? How do you find it when you're facilitating these sorts of discussions.
Colin:Well, often, often, Cath and I had this recently is somebody said to me I was talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, and you know, one of the issues that I see is often these things are bundled together in one three hour training course. You know, and the point that I was making was that it's really good that we're actually making time to educate people, but we're not presenting the information in a way that will generate the education required for social change, because I think the workplace should be a place for education for adults, as often we don't have enough time outside of work, particularly for those with children or small pets. I have to make that point. We don't have the time to actually educate ourselves because we're exhausted, we feel like we've been rung out after a day's work. So it's great that we provide these opportunities, but we don't provide a level of education enough so we can take the messages back to our own families, often about what we've learned. Sometimes it feels and this was the point that I was making about DEI it feels like a tick box.
Colin:All three of those things are training courses in their own right, because they're all different things and people are like oh, we did a diversity and inclusion one-hour workshop. I'm like man, I could spend four hours just talking about diversity. I could spend four hours just talking about inclusion. But what we want to do is really educate people to the point where they can have conversations with each other about this, about how they thought, about the bias that they recognize in themselves, and for them to be able to take that away and have a conversation with their own families is one of the things that you know as the father of a 17-year-old boy. This is a real formative time of his life and I feel for him in a way, because he's he's grown up with the men are bad, men are bad, boys are bad, boys are bad. You know, men have to change things and what I'm trying to do is help him to see where we've come from, why that's the narrative and then his role in that going forward. But I also feel I'm having the same level of conversation with see, you know, kind of 55 year old CEOs is to help them to understand.
Colin:You know, and this is one of the things that the report really brought forward is that kind of yes, you know, we've got to read one of the things the report said we've got a real issue with people who don't report issues of sexual harassment, of misogyny, because they don't feel they can. And I had one CEO said to me. He said he said my door is always open. I said but it's not enough to say that. You have to become the human face of the organization. You have to walk, you have to talk, you have to listen without judgment and then you have to question what's happening below you such that this information isn't getting to you. So I think that when we think of the workplace as a place for educating adults, it presents us with this real opportunity not only to build really strong workplace cultures but also to use the workplace as a vehicle for social change.
Cath:Yeah, it's interesting because they sort of make this really poignant point in the report that the music industry has traditionally always been seen and prided itself on being a vehicle for social change and yet in this area of discrimination, harassment, sexual abuse of women, it's just not leading in a way that it actually could be. It's set up to it, it cares about social change and yet it cares about social change over here and suddenly this bit over here it hasn't cared about at all and that's. You know, that was a really powerful point. When I read that I was like wow, yeah, you know, we think of music as being sort of really the spirit of our times and at the forefront of change and the revolution, and then suddenly, with all of that, there's been this pocket that has not moved with the times, that has actually gone in the wrong direction. That is really quite sinister in terms of resisting positive change. So yeah, I think that was a sort of really interesting point about where, what's going on, at what level that's causing that. I mean, it is really. I found it quite poignant, painful, reading some of the stories and you hear that it is so difficult, of course, to report things because it's your career that suffers, and we see that, of course, across lots of industries. We see that in lots of reports, and I've had moments in my life where I felt that I felt I'm the only woman in the room, I'm the only woman around the table, nobody's hearing my voice.
Cath:Very early on in my rowing career, when I got into the Olympic team, I was told oh, the women never win. The women never win medals, because at that point the women's rowing team had not ever won a medal and the men had. And it was presented like some kind of fact and I was just, you know, I found it devastating. I'm chasing my Olympic dream. I've made it into the team, so I'm here every day to find a way to go as fast as I can and to aim to be faster than anyone else in the world. And then you know, around the place, people with authority are repeating this phrase oh yeah, well, the women never win. So you know it won't happen. And it's just so unbelievably.
Cath:You know, in that moment it just cuts you down. These are people with experience. You respect them, you want their help, you want their support. Why on earth would you be saying that in an environment that is about exploring your potential and you know, I felt I feel naive looking back on it. It just didn't make sense, I didn't expect it and so when it came, it was a shock and you just it niggles away at you when you're having a bad day, when your performance isn't where it needs to be. It sort of niggles away at you somehow that you're in this environment, you're the new, and the beliefs around you from these people who are, you know, who are at a higher level than you, are in some way kind of just not wanting you to succeed either. Because why else would you say something like that?
Cath:So you know, I just, yeah, I've found it in all sorts of moments. I've been again in a bored situation where I've been the only woman around the table and suddenly you know, this is sort of I was in my 40s by this point, so not a spring chicken anymore. You know, what I say is basically ignored until somebody else in the suit says it and it's exactly the same thing I said 10 minutes ago that people are now agreeing with. And that again is I mean I want to video it and play it back and say do you realize what just played out? It's as if no one else is aware of it, and it's extraordinary. You just want to press pause and start to highlight that.
Cath:So I felt yeah, I felt real sort of a lot of empathy, sadness reading these stories, but also, well, you know, at least we're hearing the stories now and that's, you know. For me, the first step this is culture is about understanding the stories now and that's, you know, for me, the first step, this is culture is about understanding the stories in your organisation, and there will always be a mixed bag. They will not fit into some neat box because we are complex people and just hearing a space for story is important, but it can't just be in culture reports.
Colin:Yeah, it can't. It can't, and we've seen it in the report into the Met Police in the UK. We saw that in Baroness Casey's review. She said something along the lines of like there was this view that the Met Police said, oh well, we're no worse than anybody else, like that's okay when it comes to sexism, misogyny. Well, we're no worse. Well, you know kind of a little bit more as expected of you as the police. You know it was also Plaid Cymru. For those outside the UK, plaid Cymru is the national party, national political party of Wales, and they found bullying and misogyny at the highest level there too, in 2022. And there was a review undertaken by Nerys Evans and she found not only were there a lack of basic HR practices, which we see a lot, but also that managers and politicians need to be trained on what sexism, misogyny and culture is.
Colin:And I thought I didn't know. I hope this is useful for people Particularly, I think particularly for males. I wrote down a kind of some bullet points, I think particularly for males. I wrote down a kind of some bullet points which I'm just going to repeat here, some bullet points on ways to address sexism, Because I think when in the reports that I've read it very much. Kind of it almost asks men politely to change. But I think we need to be a bit more blunt than that. I think we have to sort of say, okay, well, men, you have to recognize your responsibility here to change the language, to help these workplaces to feel safer such that people can raise any issues.
Colin:So I think the first one for me is that if you immediately recognize a comment or a joke or something else as sexist is, don't laugh. I think that sometimes people, especially men they like cheap laughs, as I'll say something that are typical women drivers is classic, classic one, typical women drivers. And then someone will laugh to validate that comment and that person will think, oh well, it's okay for me to make that joke again because I got the laugh that I was looking for. You're saying, ah, that's okay with me. And so I think that you know, try and recognize what's a gendered statement and then kind of react accordingly, don't just let it pass. But I recognize it's not always easy to say something. It's something that I found easier than most because I didn't want to be party to that. I'm one of those weird people that when you go to the theater and you give someone a standing ovation. I'll only give them a standing ovation if I feel that it's worth it. So often people can be stood up around me and I'm like, oh, that was really good, but I'm not standing, so don't, don't always let it pass.
Colin:You can, you can say things like you know we need to change. Ask questions, I think, would be another good one. What do you mean by that? Why was that? Why do you feel that's funny? Why do you feel the need to kind of refer to somebody's gender Again if it feels safe to do so? If you feel you'd be threatening or someone might be threatening towards you, don't say anything, don't laugh and merely walk away and send the message that way, I think.
Colin:And then the last point I wanted to make, kind of related to that, is make sure that you kind of know your boundaries If you've read about this stuff. I feel confident talking about this stuff because I'm really well read on it and I've researched and I read all the reports. But if you don't feel like you've got that level of knowledge, don't get into an argument about it. Don't get into this fierce debate. I think debate is useful when you've educated yourself and I, you know the fact that you're listening to this podcast is great because you're you're educating yourself, but you know kind of resolve to go away and learn a bit more so you are better able to have that uh debate in in the. In the first place, I just think that you know any kind of gender stereotype, any kind of sexist language. There's just no place for it anywhere. Really, obviously we're we're talking about it in a work culture, uh terms here, but it has no place anywhere. But everybody's got a responsibility to make sure that we collectively stamp it out.
Cath:So I was working in a setting that was very hierarchical a few months ago, and you have to listen to situations when people are saying I can't call out somebody senior than me, that will end my career, and so I think context is really critical. But we can have more than one response available to us, and that's important. Yeah, we need to have that versatility to go in this space. This is what I can do, and I think you know if you're a leader, then you really need to be setting the standard, though, in this space, because you have got more options available to you and your impact will be magnified because others will take the lead from you. So I think if you're in a position that's got authority, you know you're higher up the hierarchical chain, then it is really important to start putting in those boundaries more clearly and to be challenging. I think if you're down the other end and you feel you haven't got that leadership position you haven't got that, you know you're feeling you're the minority or the only woman in the room then just a couple of things that are useful are firstly, just to pause, just to say, oh, let's just stop there for a minute, say nothing else, but even that can make people just reflect on what they've said. If they don't, you know you might carry on, but you still put in a reflection point and often people themselves will self-correct because actually we don't really want to be shown up and at that point you also haven't pointed the finger to make somebody really defensive. So pausing is actually a really important tool. Even that requires some bravery. You've got to sort of break the flow. But it is about going well, let's just pause a minute, let's just think about what we've just said. So that's sort of just a helpful phrase. I think that's what we have to get is some phrases in our toolkit that we can use and go actually at this moment this you know, and you can write them on your notebooks, you can practice them a bit in the safer spaces so that you're ready rather than oh, that was that minute and I didn't speak out. You know it's that and I didn't speak out.
Cath:When your stomach feels kind of dodgy, you're getting that icky feeling of stomach you probably do need to say something, and then the other thing that's quite useful is just to ask someone to repeat something. So can you just say that again Again, it just puts a little more spotlight on it and they might just double check oh am I being asked to repeat something? And often again, people will just dial down or they'll actually realise they've said something that they wouldn't want to say to their daughter or their mother or their wife, and they can work that out. So a couple of nudges there that I hope are useful for people who may not feel they've got lots of positional power. But of course, when you do have that as a leader, then you can make some really critical moments.
Cath:People remember that moment in the meeting where the leader said that's not okay and it goes a long way, and that week that's probably the thing that leader will have done that's had the biggest impact on the organization. Not how many tasks they did and stakeholders they met and all of these fancy things. It's in that meeting, holding up a boundary, a standard, will have impacted everyone in that meeting and everyone who hears about it too. So it is really important to start thinking about some of those things.
Colin:I love that. Can you say that again? I think that's a really really simple, straightforward, practical. It forces the other person to speak and we talked about this in the podcast before, kat that actually, if we can increase self-awareness in the workplace, that's where you get really great, safe, positive, vibrant culture. And what that question does is just forces the self-awareness. It forces someone to think before they speak and ask themselves the question. Oh, hang on a minute. You know is what I said, you know kind of respectful of the other people in the room.
Colin:So let's do all three takeaways. I think you know we started the session by asking the question. You know kind of how has misogyny become so rife? And I think you know we've answered that in the sense that there's a real lack of challenge. I think people just don't have the knowledge or the tactics to be able to address some of these issues. I think as well and the report pulled this out there are some people who fear losing the power that they've got, and that's happening across many, many industries right now is they don't like that threat to the power that they hold. So three takeaways what should we suggest, Cath, that people do?
Cath:So, yes, the first one is do I think you know? Let's pick up that point. It's the challenging the stereotypes. And if you have any kind of positional power, any kind of leadership role, then these are moments in our times when we need to start speaking out. We need to create some change. There's almost no sector that hasn't had a culture review and you know, actually it's really important. We should be having leadership objectives around this, not just around our sales, profit margins and things like that. But actually, how are we really setting the standards of our culture that enable people to thrive, that will root out any of these misogynistic behaviors? So our first thing to do is to start challenging those stereotypes when you see them, and the second thing we talk about is what are we going to get curious about?
Colin:And I think what we recommend here is to really get curious about the experiences that women have in your workplace. Too often we feel that people only find out about women's experiences by reading about it in a report, when the organization you know it's made it into the media. It really doesn't have to be that way. You can find out about those experiences at any time of the day, on any day of the week, and so get curious about okay. Well, let's ask the women in the workplaces what are your day-to-day experiences? And then the last one is something to uncover, Cath.
Cath:Yes. So uncover the norms. What are those norms in your organization? The standards that govern behavior, the shared beliefs about what's acceptable behavior. What are those? Try and write them down. They probably aren't written down, or there might be some written down that don't totally relate to the reality of the workplace, but what, would you say, are the standards that govern behavior? So uncover what those norms are. I actually sometimes use a kind of metaphor of saying what are the unspoken rules, what are the 10 commandments in your organization that you find out on the first day? That aren't written down anywhere, but it's really clear. You notice as soon as you're in a meeting who speaks first and all those sorts of things. So uncover the norms in your organization.
Colin:Fantastic. I have a bad feeling, Cath, that we're going to be coming back to misogyny and sexism throughout this particular series, but I think you know our goal is to raise awareness and hopefully we've been able to do that through the conversation today, which has been fantastic. Thank you so much, Kath, Great to chat.
Cath:See you soon. Thanks for listening to today's Inside.
Colin:Out Culture Podcast. Please remember to like, subscribe and, of course, share with others who you think may be interested.
