{"id":31,"date":"2022-09-22T18:55:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T18:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/?p=31"},"modified":"2023-02-17T17:14:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T17:14:57","slug":"the-bottom-is-nowhere-in-sight-for-filipina-leaders-staring-down-the-gender-chasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/writing\/reportage\/the-bottom-is-nowhere-in-sight-for-filipina-leaders-staring-down-the-gender-chasm\/","title":{"rendered":"The bottom is nowhere in sight for Filipina leaders staring down the gender chasm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Chyrel Gomez, founder and CEO of Dried Flowers PH, is no stranger to beauty. Despite facing unfair biases and other challenges, women entrepreneurs and leaders are shaping the Philippine business landscape for the better. (Photo by Iris Young\/SAIT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lara Galan considered herself very accomplished in her 20s, as one does when one receives a promotion and becomes the youngest manager of a Cebu-based publishing company. Her triumph was short-lived, however, when she unintentionally found out that two of her counterparts\u2014both male\u2014were paid substantially more than she was.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI assumed it was because I was new to the team, although it wasn\u2019t my first managerial position,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marmel Reposar had a similar experience when she landed an assistant manager role at a large, multinational business process outsourcing (BPO) company. Like Galan, she was soon privy to the uncomfortable fact she was being paid half of what a male counterpart doing half the work was making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut being young, I wanted so badly to prove myself that I accepted it,\u201d said Reposar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been over 40 years since the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was enacted by the United Nations General Assembly, setting the standard for equal representation, both in and out of the workplace. Addressing the gender pay gap was the Convention\u2019s primary focus. Data published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that the global gross domestic product (GDP) could increase by up to 35 per cent<\/a> if the pay gap is bridged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite modest strides in recent years, the 2021 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) showed a 0.6 per cent drop in the Global Gender Gap score. As it stands, there remains a 32 per cent gap that needs to be closed worldwide, which is estimated to take 135.6 years to accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One country that has shown substantial regression, both globally and in the Asia-Pacific region, is the Philippines. Ranked eighth in 2018 among the countries closest to achieving parity, it has since dropped<\/a> to 17th place. The country has closed only 78.4 per cent of its pay gap to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gender pay gap is only the tip of the iceberg of women leaders\u2019 challenges. Workplace sexism and gender stereotypes are also alive and well in a patriarchal country like the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Reposar, when she worked for the said BPO company in the early 2000s, its organizational chart primarily comprised of men at the top, with women only appearing near the bottom in lower-level management roles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just checked, and it\u2019s still the same right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young female manager, Reposar recalled name-calling and aggression from male colleagues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI endured it for two or three months and finally found another job. Until today, when someone raises their voice, I still get scared, but I\u2019m handling it so much better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Galan, the worst part was having her capabilities undermined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt started to bother me even more when I noticed my opinion wasn\u2019t valued as much during meetings. Every time I shared some insights, it seemed the two [male counterparts] weren\u2019t interested at all and would just nod before going back to their own discussion. That was the tipping point for me since it brought down my self-confidence, and I almost thought of resigning.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workplace sexism and gender stereotypes are alive and well in a patriarchal country like the Philippines.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Undermining behaviour is not limited to the corporate workplace. Chyrel Gomez, founder and CEO of DriedFlowersPH<\/a>, has had her fair share of unfair bias\u2014specifically, that her Caucasian boyfriend funds her start-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people find it hard to believe that I\u2019m capable of funding my business. What they don\u2019t realize is that I built it slowly, over time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender inequity and inequality remain legitimate problems\u2014and will continue to be so for many years to come, not just in the Philippines but worldwide. Still, there are exponentially more women leaders and entrepreneurs today than ever before. According to the 2020 Grant Thornton Women in Business report, the proportion of women in senior management is at\u00a029 per cent<\/a>\u00a0globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gomez believes that women shouldn\u2019t have to prove anything. \u201cI believe, over time, my small wins will teach everyone who the boss is,\u201d said Gomez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reposar, who is turning 40 this year, is now a scrum master who has cultivated considerable career autonomy over the years. She expressed regret at not standing up for herself all those years ago as a young manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEarly on, you need to stand tall because if you let them diminish your worth the first few times, you might end up having a difficult time changing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad that I had to go through great lengths just to prove that a young female manager has what it takes in the corporate world,\u201d said Galan. Now 36 and a senior manager for the Philippine arm of Lexmark International, a company that champions gender equality, she exudes the self-assurance of one who knows her worth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere will always be people who\u2019ll doubt you regardless of what you do, so just go ahead and let your results do the talking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gender inequity and inequality in the workplace remain legitimate problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reportage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iriswrites.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}