Is the gender pay gap real? Gender inequities in health and why we need women leaders

It is estimated that women comprise nearly 70% of the global health and social workforce, yet they only hold about 25% of senior leadership roles. This week, we share our thoughts on why we lack female leadership in healthcare and highlight why gender inequality is a global health issue. We discuss the socioeconomic factors that influence women’s career prospects all around the globe. We also address the gender pay gap and the important role men play in promoting gender equity.  

This week's case study: A Kenyan high court judge has declared that being a housewife is a full-time job, and it should therefore attract some form of compensation. 

Do you think the gender pay gap is a myth? Why do you think we lack female leadership in health care? Share your thoughts with us at worldhealthinvestigation@gmail.com

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Additional resources:

Closing the leadership gap: Gender equity and leadership in the global health and care workforce
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/341636/9789240025905-eng.pdf 

Delivered by women, led by men: A gender and equity an

Transcript

Loza: If wealth was distributed based on hard work, billionaires would be women. It would be our mothers. Bishop. Yes.

Jocelyne: If you're a hardworking, independent woman, because that's also your strong, oh, you must be very, very bossy. That means how are we going to find a mind who is going to want to marry you?

Edna: It's not just on you, like as a man to make sure you are not like, you know, harassing women or whatever it may be to perpetuating waiting any kind of like sexism. It's perpetuating also about like, keeping your friends in check.

Jocelyne: Hello, globies. Welcome to the World Health Investigation. My name is Jocelyne.

Edna: I'm Edna

Loza: And I'm Loza.

Edna: We're three young global health professionals and your hosts for the World Health Investigation podcast.

Loza: Also known as the WHI. We'll be discussing all things global health and unpacking the most controversial social and health issues.

Edna: As well as promoting new wave global health development and equity.

Jocelyne: So ladies, what's the tee in global health today?

Edna: What is the tee? Today I hear you're the one spilling the tea for us.

Jocelyne: We're talking about...we're talking about women, men, gender, the gender pay gap. Is it real?

Edna: Is it?

Loza: Is it?

Jocelyne: So we're going to address whether the, what the gender pay gap is legit or not

Edna: Really getting into it. I swear. I saw Loza. Get very sad when you mentioned men,

Loza: Who saidy that? It's not everyday men.

Jocelyne: Okay. Just a disclaimer. We are not here to bash men. Okay. We are here to make informative, informative discussions, informative discussions about gender disparities. I'm going to get us start us off with a little case study. We're very, very simplistic, very straightforward case study. Very recently, a Kenyan high court judge has declared, that being a housewife is a full time job.

Edna: Oh,

Loza: OH, oh.

Jocelyne: Can we just acknowledge that first of all.

Loza: Let's see, okay.

Jocelyne: You know, all these degrees. Yeah. Putting them on the side, think about being a housewife.

Loza: What are you going to, are you gonna

Jocelyne: Listen she said, she said, she said being a housewife is a full-time job and should therefore attract some form of compensation. So rather than having a matrimonal distribute, she, her name is Teresia Matheka. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing her name.

Loza: Come see Swahili

Jocelyne: And she has said that they're looking into having some form of compensation for Housewives in Kenya.

Loza: I like that

Edna: a hundred percent

Loza: because

Edna: Paid care work

Loza: it is because so many women in this world do so much work that it's just not economically compensated for it. Like if wealth was distributed, based on hard work, billionaires would be women. It would be our mothers.

Edna: Yes. Thank you Loza.

Jocelyne: Like, you know how weak we, as I, one, I remember being young, I was told, you know, if you work hard, you hard, you gain something. If you work hard, you be successful. It's like the pod is working people the most successful people, no work smart, not hard. Um, so we're gonna, we're gonna pack that in a little bit more detail, but before we get into vibe, let's get into our personal, personal stories where oh, women in my business were all young women, I suppose.

Did you have to say, like, what does that mean to me? You know, after this we'll talk later, we're all young black women. And we experienced whoever experienced some form of gender disparity at some point in our careers, in our personal relationships, in our friendships, in our families, in basically in every environment that we've been in.

So I'm going to start off with any of you, which form of gender inequality, disparity on fairness, harassment, whatever it is that you want to tackle, how have you experienced in your lifetime? Imagining, I feel like in this very short lifetime, like you said, as you listed all those things, like young women, black, I'm like, oh, there's a lot of, I mean, the first one that comes to your mind, the first thing that, that has, that gives you the ache.

They're

Loza: not there. I mean, okay. We were talking about this earlier on, but um, we say as women, in terms of like the workspace or an education, um, we get disregarded a lot. And I think also me, I present very like ditzy. I'm a bit, you know, I'm joking a lot. I look, maybe I see one serious, but no you don't. And a lot of places, no, it's true.

But in a lot of things, um, I, I often find like people before they get to know me, I get discounted a lot. Like people think I'm not. If I'm like new to a class or something, and we're working in a group, I'll say something. Um, and I often find from certain demographics. And they'll just look at me, stare

Edna: at me, blankly.

Loza: repeat what I said. And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Or, um, or this help us to me, even with people I'm close with where, um, we're talking about a certain topic and I've studied it extensively. Like I have research, I've done this, I understand this topic. And I tell them, and they're like, no, you're wrong.

Um, and I'm like, oh, I know someone told me this other thing that is opposite. And I sit here like, no, but like I

Edna: have ever done this. And they're like, mm it's the disregard for me.

Loza: And people only respect what I have to say. If I tell them my grades or like, if I have some kind of like, I always prove

Edna: myself,

Loza: I got a first something for

Edna: you to respect me. Or if you say that you've done. Even even then people will say, no,

Loza: you're wrong that wrong. So that's, that's one instance, at least in terms of disregard, this was

Edna: not being taken seriously. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Like I'm there when she loves it. Like, I could also think of like, it's sometimes like in these small moments, you know what I mean?

But they ended up like giving you this big pattern and theme of like, just be getting disregarded a lot. Like it was great one. Yeah. Yeah. Um, for me, I would say it's a lot of just like a lot of different points at work at home, you know, where I do feel a lot of responsibility expected from me. And I think sometimes it really is just cause I, I I'm a girl, I'm a woman, whatever it may be, even it's just like growing up, I feel.

Boys the same age as me, we're not expected to do the same things I was being expected to do or to know certain things that I was expected to know. Like sometimes they would just looking at me like you should know this, like even at work I do for a lot of times of like, uh, you know, people get almost confused when I just don't know something.

Why admit that maybe I'm like confused, cause maybe like an expectation of. I feel maybe be on it, be like very responsible and all these different things be on top of you. Like your game at night, you are very responsive. Yeah. I know.

pressure you get. Yeah. That's what I mean. Maybe that pressure as well has put me to like force myself to be like, okay, I guess I have to be super responsible. Know what I mean? But I feel like when I compare to like my male counterparts of the same age grown in similar backgrounds, like there was not that expectation for them.

Um, I

Loza: would agree with you so much because I think we went opposite ways where you said, okay, let me embrace the responsibility. And I remember my whole life was rebelling against it. I was like, I'm not going to learn how to do anything. And I'm not going to learn how to cook because thanks. And then here I am at 23 starving, but it's okay.

Let me see patriarchy winning, but I agree. It's true. It's true. Like you're expected to be so much more responsible. Well,

Edna: the boys are like, there'll be boys sleeping. Yeah. And the boy, like people just understand like, okay, but they're just boys. So let go. Yeah. I think it's, it's interesting how you say at my, you talk about your, the responsibility bit.

And I feel like as women it's like, you, you're expected to be, to have it all together, but you're still dismissed. You're still like two from you. Like a lot is expected of you. You have to look good. You have to look like your beauty is a currency. You have to look good. You have to be smart, especially knowledge to be smart.

Now you also have to be somehow independent. Otherwise if you're a housewife, People may look down upon you. Whereas I'm not saying that as long as to be a house, I'm like lawyer, if I could, I would,

but I'm like, it's like you almost like if your house like that. Oh, so you, you took the easy way out. People think you're just doing nothing. You're an ambitious. If you're a hardworking, independent woman who be like, oh, so you're strong. Oh, you're, you must be very, very bossy. That means how are we going to find a mind who is going to want to learn in you anyways?

That's just me pushing up on the, on the fuse. And I want to say my personal example, right? I want to, I'm going to tell you guys what I experienced, right? Number going back to room, my loving mother. And, um, we have a printer at home cause I, it was something I picked a broke down. So I had to go outside to ask, to buy a ways to go somewhere, to pay for my printer.

And this guy was like, oh, um, I'm going to give you this printing service for free. If you're telling me your name, obviously he trying to make a move. Right. And I was like, I don't even, I'm not even like having the time of it. And then he say, so tell me more about yourself. What do you do? What do you study?

You study art. Like, you're very beautiful. You sound like you you're very artistic person. Like women don't really do science like that or anything too technical. So he literally said this word for word bar, for bar. This is me at 17. Like. Why are you being strange? Why are you being asked for

So it, my do my business, I was in a hurry to print this very important document. And this is my will stop talking, telling me about how he thinks, how he knows. He felt women are very artistic and caring and we don't do sat. And this was me doing IB biology, high level, higher level, like are, you know, are you mad?

Have you lost your mind?

Loza: No. Look at you.

Jocelyne: exactly. And it's, it's just like this, and there's been so many instances where it's almost like. When I, when I go there, like, and not a lot is the most expected of me. Right? So when were you, my , you know how to make your traditional dishes, you know, Jocelyn, you know, your age. I remember being,

already knew how to make a fufu and knew how to make all the traditional dishes. In fact, I was sticking kill the whole household. Me when I was by myself, by myself, you look at you just look at, so are you proud? What can you do? What can you do to get you lazy? Oh, you know how to do his book? Oh, you.

Oh, my goodness. No, this is clearly very chaotic. Like, like just a combination of like most of what you said, what I said, it goes to what you were saying, Katie it's like what's expected of women is just a bit crazy. It's crazy. That's why I don't, I'm not sure where to pick this conversation because there's on one side, there's like healthcare, which going to touch on later on there's family, there's relationships, baby.

There's everything that come together, which eventually affect a woman's career and her career, his life choices, which leads me onto my next point. Now about some statistics is that the health and social care sector, it's one of the largest and fastest growing employment sectors in the world, particularly.

Hm. And women provide essential health and care services, far off 5 billion people and contribute in a us, particularly over 3 trillion, us dollars annually in global health. That's a lot of money. And half of it comes from on paid work, by the way, does the job that they just dropped that there. And now, just to give you like a very, this statistic that really like struck, struck me was that women comprised nearly 70% of the global health sector were asked.

It's estimated that the only hold 25% of senior leadership roles. Mm . It's not, it's going to making sense. That's a big discrepancy right there. You get bigger. It is okay. If it is just this, just assume that, you know, we, we go by what. What society has imposed on women, right? Like we're nurturing, we're caring.

Yes. We will do healthcare. It was in this healthcare sector, which is majority women. The leadership is done by men. They see no rules is run by men. Now we're going to touch on why that's the case a bit later, but let's just kind of like, you know, the similar interests on why this is. Yeah.

Loza: Why it is. I mean, I think there's so many reasons.

Um, I think we touched upon it, like in the fertility episode, in the first episode. Um, but workplaces are not so welcoming to women in terms of, for example, if they want to start a family,

Edna: um, You know that

Loza: it's, they're kind of forced to choose between one. I've seen it like for personal examples. I know people in my family that were in healthcare, that once they had children, it became so, um, it was very unwelcoming.

Like the environment was very unwelcoming towards this person. Um, at each stage, you know, um, balancing, raising a child and working was made very difficult. Um, from management, there was very little understanding of this, where they had to quit. And they said this happened not only to them, but other women that they worked with and what they saw was the same people that they trained within the university.

They saw their men advance and keep going because very little family responsibilities, they, you know, they could leave the kids with the wife, do whatever. Um, and they got their further qualifications. They became the bosses. And actually they came back to these women that had that, uh, burden of also raising a family.

Um, and they would come to them and say, we did the same thing. Why are you not able to, um, have these qualifications? Why are you not able to work the same hours? And so, because of this, a lot of women were kind of, even if they had that desire to work and progress into leadership roles, they were pushed out because the environment was so unwelcoming and it was so hostile.

That's the word. Yeah,

Edna: no, I'm glad you brought up like the environment itself, even in healthcare. Healthcare is like usually quite straightforward because I know for example, as well in Zimbabwe, a lot of the times, you know, when people are training to become like midwives or nurses or whatever, obviously they still have to answer to some kind of like senior doctor or whatever.

And that tends to be a man in that many cases of like sexual harass. Yeah. The men that are in charge can be very horrible. So if the workplace environment itself can, cannot become like a danger, a threat to you, you know what I mean? So it's, again, I think you may want to go verify in life, but the place itself is dangerous for you.

Yeah.

Loza: A lot of like medical students that are women that senior would expect certain like certain things from them. And if they don't, um, they will fail them or they won't give them a certain grade. And so they will feel so uncomfortable. They'll leave. And then here you are losing women because of, you know, men that are in higher positions that are taking advantage

Edna: of women normally are not only are we, um, um, being completely inequitable, but we're also losing out or missing out on very, very, very, very strong, competent expertise, expertise,

Loza: great minds that could contribute

Edna: so much.

Exactly. And I'll also just add, I also feel like. Sometimes even the women that make it to these top leadership positions, once you do make it there, I feel like you're under such a magnifying glass. Everyone is watching your every move and I feel that's another thing that can end up making women leave those positions or don't want to go there.

Or once they quickly get like, removed from that position, was it not up to my mother? I remember my mother said that the higher up you go in positions, the less the moment there are a few women, there are, I don't know if it's hard, but it's true. So now get, we're going to get into a, more of like a problem statement.

So we've seen that gender analysis in RoboHelp has primarily focused on the point of service delivery and quality of care and the lots we've almost seen women as care recipient. Receiving care like women's health, reproductive health, um, receiving health rather than, um, it has largely ignored the fact that women are not only recipients of healthcare, but are also primary drivers of health globally.

So the women who weren't healthcare systems do not have an equal seat with men in terms of their design and the delivery. And these significant challenges have been linked to half their system inefficiencies, which in fact, impact the healthcare worker training and supply pipeline, as well as recruitment deployment, retention, attrition, and generally contribute to healthcare imbalances between both the formal and informal health care workers.

Right? And as a result, women in the healthcare workforce are primarily well, largely being clustered into lower status and underpaid jobs and healthcare systems eventually lose female talents and perspectives as well.

So my next question is how, what, what do you think is the solution to gender, to, to these issues? Like just these gender disparities in that, particularly in the workspace, what do you think should be done to address this? What a big question, big, big questions. Um, what would be for before we even think about what, what should be done for addressing, what change would you like to see?

Loza: Say, for example, for the, um, examples we used, um, hope setting up accountability mechanisms. So if there is, you know, sexual harassment that is driving women out of these positions, a lot of the times, um, these men are protected by other men that are around them. So holding mechanisms where, you know, there's maybe an external evaluator that has kind of, that doesn't have a relationship with that certain man that has committed this act.

Um, and so setting these up to protect women, uh, from these predators and acknowledging the too, I think a lot of people just deny that it even exists,

Edna: but no, everything's fine. We don't do that here, but

Loza: I think that's one

Edna: way I agree. Definitely. We need those like accountability. Um, for me when, when I think more workspace and let's say women being in leadership positions or just women being in the workplace in general, I feel like.

It is still one of those things where the burden on getting to equality and, you know, pushing ourselves to being girl bosses and all these things is on us swimming. It's still on us. Like the word makes it seem like, yeah, if you keep adding, you can break the glass ceiling, but I'm also like where is the space there for men to also be part of that?

I think we can also try to think about like, where can the men be involved in this? Yes, yes, yes. Yes. I completely agree with you because if you look at most gender, um, gender conferences, uh, events, it's majority, female. Yeah. It's what you see the rule before 80% women, maybe. So men will comment or

Loza: kind of becomes an echo chamber.

We're just something and we're all agreeing. Okay. But then where's the, where's the source of the problem?

Edna: Where are they? Exactly. They are

Loza: in the conversation. There is no point we

Edna: canceled. Exactly. We can sit here in a room and try to think of like strategies and all these different things. But if the boss at the top there is still a man and they disagree.

Jocelyne: Yeah. Well then what, then what? We'll just be looking at each other. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Now it's funny how you've touched. You touched on the fact that yes, we need, we need as much male involvement as possible. And the problem is there's still a lot of men that don't even agree with the principles behind gender equality.

So they're people that are coming for the feminist, the feminizes, the family, whatever new feminism

how, how do we like to them? We're seeing. Nonsense. It's like the tender pick up. It's not even real now let's address that right now. It's the gender pay gap real. Does it exist? Tell us, just let, in my opinion, yes, it feels like it does. I feel it. I know that some people would think it doesn't, it's a myth.

A lot of people it's a myth. So that's why I'm going to unpack that Degas. So the Pega. In health and social care. I found a study that has shown that there are in fact on adjusted big gaps in health and social care. We try to estimate that and about which are estimated in about 26% of high-income countries and play 9% in upper middle income countries.

Right? And now we're going to talk about the gender pay gap in terms of equal pay. Now, equal pay refers to men and women performing the same role and receiving paid that is equal pay for equal work of value. So in global health, there is, um, limited evidence on the gender pay gap because not just that, they're not enough papers, they're not, there's not enough, um, um, information about it.

There's not this information about it, but there's not enough information in both lower, particularly in low and middle income countries, because a lot of the women that would normally participate in these studies would have. The doctor with the woman that are affected would not participate in the support.

It's very difficult to track such information. Right? And so, uh, um, uh, but however, in the us, a recent survey of about 65,000 physicians in the U S yet revealed that women doctors earn an average of 27.7% less than their male counterparts in 2017, which is a total average. That doesn't sound like a lot, but on average annually, that is $105,000 less in a year, 105 pounds.

All I can do with that money with not one study from Australia also found that the average gender pay gap is between is around 67, 16 0.7. And so even in health sectors where women play a larger role, such as in dentistry, they continue to earn less than their male counterparts. And we send studies suggest that the gender pay gap in physician salaries, persist even after controlling for specialty practice type and hours work, because I've heard a lot of you say that, oh, you mentioned that demographics it's between social economic, economic factors that affected it's because let's say, I'll

Loza: even say, oh, it's not our fault.

Women choose careers that paid less a, we choose that

Edna: it's accounted for no one it's a counterpoint. The only problem now is that the current research that we have does not include every single country. That is the major issue. It doesn't take away from the fact that there are disparities in Cottonwood.

To pay in health, not just in healthcare, but in other sectors as well. So a lot of companies are now being encouraged to publish the statistics, publish the salaries for men and women. I know they're shaking in their boots.

publish those salaries, publish the paper, publish the compensations, publish the promotions, publish those promotions

right now. Because if the is that, if there's not enough data, it's very difficult to gather high quality research on the, and it's not high quality research on it, but the papers that we've seen have identified some form of that right now, what that means.

Yeah, I just wanted it to pick up on your points around like how I think the stats you're talking about show, um, higher income countries and upper upon is that it, um, high income countries, high income countries, just them. Um, and it was that, you know, sometimes it's, is it hard to, to just include lower to middle income countries because of how very, to the like work with it is because yeah, I can say, for example, it's above with this, a lot of like there's formal employment and then there's like informal employment.

And so like, definitely I think there are cases where it's like, we can count the people who are employed formally, but we don't even know about like the informal sector. They're like just like street vendors, people who just don't know that we don't know, we have no way of tracking. So could even be. That the, the big problem is that in a lot of low income countries, there's a large informal sector, which is a very difficult outcome measure.

It's a very, very difficult to measure, um, pay even agricultural work. A lot of women do in things like suing. If you're working, like if you're working for a certain company, a lot of women do that. I know it can ruin for suing companies or work even in a restaurant. Sometimes it's very difficult to monitor that because they, they, yeah, the standardized it's not standardized.

Yeah. That's the one it's not standardized.

Loza: Um, so I think even from this research it's right. It could even be worse in these countries. But it exists. I hope we've established that now. It's not because women choose lower paying careers. It would

Edna: be the same. And then, then, then, then they're going to be, and I know, so I need to just adjust out.

I've heard people see, right? Oh, women are naturally nurturing. Women are naturally caring. Women don't want to take a senior roles. Women don't want to take leadership roles. As a matter of fact, women love being nurses. That's why we don't have as many male nurses. Let's just address the fact that for a very, very, very, very long period of time, medicine was a male only profession.

Anyway. Oh man, don't even allowed. They wouldn't even, doctors were even allowed to go to city and know, they'll say you're not allowed here, please. You see, you see other you that I went to was the first. You could offer a medical school for women. For

Loza: me like yesterday,

Edna: that was not long ago.

Last week. Like last week, know it wasn't the seventies. Yeah. It was a bit late. Some places let's not lie. Yeah. And, and, and it's more like, yeah. So, so for, for women for a long time, that the best way for women to get into healthcare was to nursing. You bet you become a nurse, then you become a doctor.

That's, that's how it was for a long period of time. And that's why even today, if you just say you have a mom, that's a nurse and you have a daughter, your daughter is more likely to become a nurse as well, because you're going to pass that you kind of want to pass that onto her now does not mean that women don't want senior leadership pools or that.

Oh. And also there's been, um, This has been this, this Texas, obviously this societal Patriot call notion that that yes, men can't be doing nursing because men are providers. Yeah. They're not, uh, yeah, I'm sure my uncle was a great nurse.

Loza: It's possible. It's possible. I mean, you know what? I find funny though, what you said, I've heard it a lot of like, women are just naturally caring.

You guys don't want this. And I always hear men are telling it to women and we're telling, you know, actually, this is what I want. They're like, no, no, no.

Edna: I know as I'm

Loza: sitting here, like, I don't know what it wants. Yeah. Do, that's going to tell me what I want. I find that ridiculous, but I hear it a lot. And I, this point I laugh

Edna: a hundred percent.

I, for me. You know what let's say? We even did a sever of all the women in the world, and we find some hard concrete evidence that they tend to be more caring than men that does not mean men are not caring people. Right. That should not be an, it doesn't mean that men are not like men are incapable of caring.

And this is where there's also the whole social aspect, because we have these gender roles that we have defined and we've just allowed it to be like, yes, women tend to be the more caring once they nurture for the children. The men is not expected to change diapers or these things. I know some men do.

I'm not, I'm not comfortable yet, but it's like, I'm not going to congratulate you. You should've been getting on a ward because that's your time to care for your child. That way we set this expectation of like women tend to be the more caring ones are not. And therefore that justifies the fact that. It's okay.

That women stay in these like lower paying jobs. They don't care with. And

Loza: also being caring and nurturing is a good quality for a leader.

When someone calls, they said, men are logical and that's all you need. No, sometimes you need caring people,

Edna: leader. You need for us, seen a lot of these psychometric pest profiling tests. How do you suggest that for you to be a good leader? You need to have such a level of situational judgment skills. You need emotional intelligence, just having a high IQ.

Emotional intelligence is equally as important because what's the point. If you're having a first successful company, every everybody hates you.

it happens. I've heard stories of people with like, they literally just lost something. And they need to go to a funeral, something, they are telling this to their manager, but the manager is kind of looking back at them like, but so will you be back next week or when should I lock you in for, yeah. Can you imagine.

And finally with this, um, gender pay gap thing, let's also consider other career factors, right? The fact that women do eventually have to allow women to take the offer, to have to address eventually, which affects your career. And I heard love messy. Yes. You know, nature has not been in your favor. I'm sorry.

Nature has not been in your favor, but it's like other women having children by themselves. I just want to know, like when I decided to have, I mean, nowadays there is IVF and all that stuff, but just speak generally for a lot of people. Do I decide. So impregnates myself. No, I'm not a plant. I can't do that as an materia.

That's what I know. It's a family,

Loza: you're still a father. You

Edna: still need to take care of the kids that you brought into this world, but that you participated in. Yeah. That's the, that's the major issue. It's the fact that you right now, right? We are young peoples. We, uh, I keep repeating that real young because obviously there, there, there are different, um, demographic factors such as age to affect your career prospects.

Right? Right. We are young. You could have a male counterpart doing the same course as you start in the same career as you, you guys have equal P right. As you develop into your career, let's say you have to, let's say, for example, let me, I'm going to use, um, my let's say me for example, right? Equal pay as someone that also studied epidemiology, both did the same course.

So the same as we develop, let's say at the age of, you know, my late twenties or early thirties, I decided to have children or now I have to take like two, three years out to pick up my children and nurture them and stuff like that. Now I just have decided that if I have one child is you might have two children only with three children because life happens now have to call those two children, all those three children, and that's more and more years to get out of my time.

My male counterpart, eventually I didn't have to worry about, have to take time out. Do you have to take parental leave or whatever progresses and continues. Now I come back maybe as a married woman as a mother, how am I treated differently? My pain, my career progression that was initially very, very steep, stagnant, or even on the downfall.

But sometimes it's the reason why there is equal pay between men and women that have had the same career aspirations.

Loza: This is, yeah. I mean, this is backed by studies and everything. Where if you take a couple of years out for, to raise that kid and you come back, I mean, first of all, there say, explain that gap in your CV.

And most of them don't even accept that I was raising a child

Edna: being as a

Loza: valid reason, valid reason. Exactly.

Edna: Do you understand that even like basic raising children can be worse than managing a company

Loza: you have, should be in your CV and a shift. I think you gain so many

Edna: skills from that. So maybe having a company with unwilling participants are not participating. You cannot report to HR, to anybody. You have a whole family to run. Do you think it's easy? You think that was a holiday? They'll just incite to cry.

They'd be like, you're making my life so difficult. I can't find my other shoe. It's the end of the world. My back is itching. I don't feel like eating today. I have lost weight who knows. I may have fucked a virus. I may just be dying. And I have to, you have to take care of that time because it's your responsibility.

They told me I'm useless. And

Loza: this is why when you're talking about how it's being compensated, I'm here for this. That is a job.

Edna: That is a job. And you should ignore it is work. It is work because yeah, I feel like in my conversations with various men, with various mindsets, there is you would be surprised even people our age, there is still this mindset.

Yes. I would expect my wife to be like ambitious and have a career and be independent as he wants, but she would also come back home and cook

also be a billionaire. You know what it's funny nowadays. Yeah. Actually a lot of these men that expecting the care and nurture of women in the seventies with the ambition of the 20, 22 women, the expecting like, oh, you to behave as we ask submissive and nurturing and come back. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You also want to pay a bill.

oh. It's like, why? Like, if you're not advancing your careers, like babes, you're kinda like. I want a strong, independent woman. I want a strong, I want a woman, an ambitious woman that is funny, and that also looks very good after having four, two drinks, high value, high value.

bringing your table. Now that you've mentioned, let's just unpack now this whole value,

it's really touching us on. I think we know. No, we're going to get into more personal things. Yeah. The dating scene, because dating and marriage are factors that affect health care that come into play eventually. Right? This whole idea behind a high-value mind or highly valuable men. What is, can we just, before we get into the topic, let's just define, can we like like for look movies or is that high value, man,

girl, the flat that we have a definition, it's just, I roll my eyes. Describe a high value, man. You are just part an term I've sent out. My America

Loza: has the high pink

Edna: career.

Yeah, most of them don't have

you

Loza: know, he wants a car, a house he's making an investment. As he grows older, his value only

Edna: increases. I like women.

Loza: I bet that's the definition. I didn't make it. And so he also deserves a high value.

Edna: Yes on this, this high-value Mondo. Yeah. The older he gets, the more money he has businesses and he is, he doesn't need to get his me to be as attractive. He needs to be ugly. It's okay.

He needs to have, whereas the woman on the other hand, as she gets older, her expired this continuous

a child from a previous marriage or something. Oh gosh. And your buddy has gone all the way down.

So thank you for your definition. Drive very well, very well described. Why, how does that relate to our topic behind gender inequality? The people that have even come up with this definition in the first place have been the ones that have bashed single mothers that must women saying that, you know, we ask high bugging, man.

We cannot even look at these on one 10 past the age of party, single mothers that, uh, happened, happened to be so unwanted and undesired by

Loza: bashing the parent that stayed

Edna: Are you going to bash the one that no, no objections vibes. So a lot of, not a lot. I've heard a lot of women say, oh, I want to be a high value woman. Do you want me to be, can I also be a high value? What is a high value woman? That's the problem is that a high-value woman is the one that has more. That's what I mean, you know, with this high value woman being right.

That is the thing that. From the men from the men, we'll talk about being high value men. They have a certain definition of what a high value woman is that will match their hyphen units in the women's camp. There is some idea of like, what's a high value woman can be, but it doesn't necessarily match. It doesn't matter.

But one of these high value men have definitely on the side of you must be able to do everything and you must almost be like complimentary to me. And so that's fine, but understand that I have six figures and yeah, six and I'm a very busy man. I don't have time for running it to the ground. I don't have time for all this nurturing and kind stuff that you people, that's your job.

My love to be a complete douchebag. And I'm making investments on busy making investments for our future. Like those stress me with these children.

I had renewed by the way, no one

Loza: children

Edna: look at them, but they're the same ones. The ones who, when your children, the one that well, my children. So that leads me onto my next point about how not a lot of women have kind of being bashed down or, or shamed for being single mothers or for being, for having children at an early age or young age, or even older, their old age.

And, and, and now have now tried to, to embody feminine energy to attract the high volume

Yes. It's all women. None of they've heard. Oh, the men don't, they don't want us. They don't want the bossy woman. Now I have to be feminine. Now I have to turn my family. Now I have to be bossy, but not too bossy. I have to be successful, but not too successful. I have to ambitious, but not too ambitious. The man, I won't never get married.

Otherwise I will be single and alone forever. It's the conclusion, basically, master the conclusion. If you choose to believe these definitions of what a hyphen human is and what a hybrid

let's unpack what this whole, like videos around, you know, channeling your feminine energy. And

Loza: there's like feminine coaches now

Edna: how to be a woman, like

Loza: I'm already a woman leave me alone.

Edna: But you know, the thing is, I feel like there's even different, like degrees of them, like, like I know there's like, there'll be the Pygmies.

The women will be more like female energy saw that you can get a man. Oh, attract the high value, man.

Then they could also be a camp where it's more about. Okay. Don't think about the men. Don't think about masculine energy, embrace the feminine energy, you know, and you can channel into this one and that one in your career, you can channel into this, be this goddess, be this, that, that, you know, there's that side of it too, which is yes.

On the mat, but

it's,

Edna: you know, something. Yes, yes. I've seen them. I'm actually quite busy of like how to, how to, um, embrace your feminine self, which can come from a good perspective. But my problem comes when. It is done in order to address the men. I do not. My last name is centered around, man. No, I don't. I want to exist.

I am a woman as I am. Uh, I have, everybody has, even as Alma, you can have some masculine interests as well. And what that means is different for everyone. It's definitely like, it's

just

Loza: us not put categories on it.

Edna: Yeah. They're just treating, I've seen people be like, oh, you there's like a male home that the male hormones make you more dominant and give you those leadership skills.

Like the male hormone makes you more assertive or as a female hormone is more kind and understanding and nurturing

Loza: what the heck

Edna: it's like eugenics, but for like, Gender. Yeah. Yeah, no,

Loza: it's getting weird out here. It'd be have multiple hormones in men have estrogen in women like testosterone. I don't what they don't

make

Edna: seems sorry. I'm not my science. I'm not now. I'm willing to think about like women that try to make themselves more masculine in order to be respected.

Like, I really understand how they feel, but how can we address that a hundred percent? Like, that's the first thing that came to my mind when you're talking about like the masculine traits, feminine traits and stuff like that. I'm like, okay, divide them however you want them to divide them. I don't know.

It doesn't matter, but I. We know of these typical masculine traits. So like, let's say being like very like assertive and dah, dah, dah, those are usually associated with men, but then when women take on those kinds of traits, we're not taking them on. It could just be a treat that they also have to be in a sensitive person.

You need that you don't need it, but when it's a woman, She is perceived as being very, um, I

Loza: don't know what the word is, but you don't know what the word is.

Edna: Yeah. She's going to save to be a B. Yeah.

Loza: So much like women, female bosses are horrible. You don't want me, I used to hear that so much growing up where, like, if you have a boss, that's a woman she's gonna make your life horrible and everything.

And when I worked, the majority of my bosses were women and I loved them.

Edna: Oh, the female bosses that I've had. I love them, Chris. And where are the evil ones y'all talking about? Evil, evil. You will bossy and be word. Literally all my managers have come across so far that a women I'm like, I need to learn how to do that.

Like, I didn't know if it was possible for like a women to like be in this way. No Mo you know what I mean? We could learn from you. I love the time that me understanding as well. There's the half that balance between being assertive and being understanding, you can even tell her like, okay, you know, right now I'm currently experiencing this as she would be.

Like, I understand sometimes, sometimes with a male boss, it can, like, you kind of have to pick your words a bit, you know, you don't want to say too much because

we get, can we get the job done though? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I get into the final, final, final, final points and final, final, final points that women tend to face now, sexual harassment, harassment at the workplace, probably anywhere have, you know, that that's a very, very common problem. A lot of women, when they get into the workspace, I've seen this in many places, even in ferry, I'm not going to sit the names, large, big, respectable organization where women get pulled, asked to do favors to get an internship.

I've seen that. I've seen that before. I'm not going to name any names, but I've seen it. Whoever you are, you know who you are. But women get asked for very, very uncooperative. They get put in very, very uncomfortable positions in order for them to progress in their careers, not just in health care, in social care, in the creative industry.

That's the complete entertainment industry in so many industries with. And that's why a lot of women, like, if it's a hard, it's hard for them to have that career progression or to be taken seriously. Yeah.

Loza: No. Imagine even like the toll that has on mental health, every step you take when you're faced with this, I don't know.

It's

Edna: just easy to give up. It's easy to give up. And it's like, again, as we touched on with, like, let's say the example of like the nurses and the story that Lou Loza provided, it's again, a case of like, you may really want to do the most for your career and stuff like that, but you have to be aware that you can't trust everyone.

I think that's, it ends up being the most like dangerous and threatening. It's like, you think you're in the workplace, you think you're somewhere professional identity and then someone makes a move on you. And you're probably just left it like flabbergasted, you know what I mean? Thank you. You're not safe.

You don't feel safe. You're not, you know, and, and that's, that's eventually that's, that's what I love women almost. That's why you don't, you kind of lose the confidence in yourself as well. You almost feel like there's this block, this block, especially if your boss is that person now that's, so that's a horrible position to be in.

If your boss is sexually harassing you, that is a very, very, very horrible situation to be in. But the reason why we're talking about it is because it's still happening. It happens, it happens. And

Loza: we

Edna: all know. Like we, we can, we, I'm telling you if you're a mill counterpart or whatever you ask any of your female friends, someone they will tell you about one time they have experienced some form of sexual harassment.

Yeah. Isn't this statistic. I just off the top of my head, isn't it like one in three or one in four women has experienced some form of sexual harassment, sexual harassment. Well, of course sexual Asher's made it's like on a scale, like it's not just one thing. The one thing it's now it's not all hardcore way pumps.

Yeah, no, it's it's even the advanced it's the only wanted advanced on solicitors. Right.

Loza: I mean, even in the streets, like I stay fearing for my life. Like the amount of times I've been followed, even in this safe Geneva last week, someone was following me on a bicycle that was literally

Edna: running to my home.

Yeah.

Loza: Feel safe, existing and walking

Edna: outside. But how would you check your car? What you wear? So, yes, like you want to be perceived in the right way. You also need to not just like to address sexual harassment like me personally, I always have to like check myself, like, how am I dressing? I want to, I want to dress the way I am, but I also don't want to give the wrong impression.

I don't want to give off that. I don't want to attract those kinds of people, but it's like, it's almost becoming internalized that internalized misogyny that a lot of women face and eventually kind of like, oh, let me, even if you cover up, like you cover up, but you still get caught cold. Yeah. And I want to also just add that, you know, it's not just limited to the kind of sexual harassment you can face in the workplace.

Let's say whatever organization you're working. I've also seen cases where in global health, global health organizations or humanitarian organizations, where they have reports of their work, cause harassing people, they deliver aid to working in refugee camps. They come in here. I don't want to put any names on blast, but it's like, you know, they have that some of their workers allegedly working in refugee camps and they're harassing refugees.

Imagine. Yeah, like that cannot happen in a health space. We can't unacceptable do no harm.

Loza: And instead of even preventing the harm that exists, they're creating

Edna: more problems. They're creating more problems. They created more chroma, more trauma, and even like less trusted some of like our organizations. Um, yes.

And, and that kinda makes me think, like I also heard a lot of men be like, oh yeah, you know, I don't do those things. Like I don't, I don't ever see women go through that. They don't understand. They say, oh, you know, I don't think like that. I'm respectful to women. I love women. I respect women. You know, I'm not saying you don't, but I think that even as a man, you do need to understand your male privilege, understand that you do have male privilege and there are things that you can actually do about it.

Like speaking up like that joke that your boy made, that happened to be funny. That was fashioned out. I'm not a woman, correct him. Avoid the B word, avoid slut-shaming. Those are microaggressions. Those are things that are micro, but eventually the.

The bigger pickup long-term consequences. You're up, you're contributing to someone else's traumatic experiences. You will, by you not saying anything or doing anything, you are contributing to that. So even things like, oh, like you go on a date and the waiter would not even have knowledge to a woman. Like,

I don't know. They don't mean it in a bad way, but they just, just happened to be as visible. Yeah. I just want to add to that, like, okay. I don't want to get too much into the Patriot can, stuff like that. And we definitely need to address the men, but I also just want to address the women who perpetuate patriarchy too.

You know, it's not just men who are the ones Patriots in patriarchy. So for me, it's still in the form of, let's say, for example, even women, sometimes I've heard cases where women there'll be driving it and they make a joke. Like that person must be a woman who's driving. Like when someone makes a mistake, like how can you ask a woman.

You know what I mean? So I think it's great that you mentioned the little jokes as well. Does that microaggressions like those points to a lot? Yeah.

Loza: Yeah. The culture of like our wording and everything. Of course it positions women as like the weaker ones than the men are. The stronger ones, but no, there's a lot of language because you know, someone that is violence against women, doesn't start immediately with violence.

It's the way this, the jokes they make. It's the way they communicate about women that will tell you. And we've seen instances of like men that ended up, you know, killing women or being aggressive towards women. Their friends will say, actually they were a bit creepy. You know, women did complain about them, but they said, oh, but he's just like

Edna: that until he does something violent.

Yeah. No, that's why it just sounds so like your points about like, it's not just on you, like as a man to make sure you are not like, you know, harassing women or whatever. It may be perpetuating any kind of like sexism. It's also about like, keeping your friends in check your silence can be violent. Like, oh yeah.

You're 100%

Loza: a couple of your friends accountable and they take you more seriously than

Edna: they would. Yes. That's the thing, like we are all women who are speaking, but unfortunately, men listen to more men like men listen more when men other men speak, use your privilege, privilege your about it. But don't just say, oh, it was my sister or it was my mother.

Loza: No, it's just because someone is a human, that's it like?

Edna: It's true. It's true. I also faced this way. It was. This may be someone where I fear for some of the views that they had. You know, there's, there's only so much I can do from my point of view, in terms of speaking with them and telling them, sharing different perspectives and some way I just had to be, you know, good to their friends and be like, speak to your boy.

Like, yeah, they're not, they're not listening to me. Like, and if you, you know, someone needs to keep this guy in check otherwise. Yeah. And I've also heard some, some guys get like, oh, oh, I can't imagine what it's like to have a daughter. Oh. If I had a daughter so difficult, I find that great. How about with change?

The way the sun, for me, it's like my role for being born a woman you can't see. Oh, it's so scary. How about you? I'm suspicious of

Loza: those men. Cause I'm like, how do you view

Edna: women that you're so scared of having a daughter raising a son it's so

Loza: easy and stuff, and they say that, but they don't actually raise their sons.

They just let them do

Edna: whatever they let them do whatever.

Loza: That's why they think it's easy. It's not, it's not easy to raise anybody,

Edna: but

Loza: this, yeah, this

Edna: attitude, some men have towards daughters. Yeah, I have a bit of a dive of your question that just came into my mind. Okay. Because Loza what you were saying, just reminded me of the story of T I remember where he would go with his daughter to check her virginity.

Oh, I was wondering if you guys were like a healthcare worker, the gynecologist, like, what would you do in that position of like, there's this father that comes to me every year with his daughter to check her virginity, his son, his daughter I'm reporting it to the police. Wow. You know, the

Loza: police won't help.

Like, I'm really wondering what legal actions are there. I mean, one thing you can do is refuse care, but.

Edna: Can you even do that? I don't know reports. I mean, you don't have to report to the police, but there's definitely some Nico actually you can tell services. I don't know. MI maybe. Yeah, I might, I might try my best with you.

Say like, oh, okay. Can, can you at least step out of the room? I think the first day, if I do it, you know, like, yeah, I just don't do nothing. I'd be like, girl, like yes or no. Give me whatever answer, not just the kids. And I've seen that I've seen some case studies or women's health. When in business, I Botswana where I thought I heard of a woman that she was supposed to be giving birth, delivering a towel, going photog labor, and the husband refused to have a male gynecologist.

So she lost her onboard. She lost her unborn child. Hey, wait a day. Cool. I love him in the delivery room. Get out. He wouldn't say I do not want anybody looking at my wife's China, so she will a woman

Loza: bleeding and dying.

Edna: So now your, your views have Costa life. Yeah. This is wild. These are not just topics that were just meant to just ignore.

We have to address them. We have to address them. Yeah. But yeah, that's a CRM. So we've said before, we've seen cases of, of sexual harassment, discrimination, uh, disparities, when it comes to pay social determinants that affect disparities, gender determinants, that affect disparities. And so many other factors that affect women as a whole.

And the reason why this particular episode perfectly addresses women is because. Yep. So this have shown that women have a much, much, much higher percentage when it comes to facing these issues. Like men bull faced sexual harassment as well. But I think those are certainly ones that also found that compared to women, men face about like, I think so of 20%, just so you know, still, um, concerning, but in comparison to women, women face these issues on the daily.

We're going to have another episode for men sometime, maybe in the next season, but this, this episode where we really want to address that, like the gender pay gap, it's not a myth, it's not a myth that more research needs to be done to address it 100%, particularly in low and middle income countries. And that's something that, you know, if the people don't want to do the research.

Yeah. Not just women, men too. Yeah. Like we it's, it's not, uh, not only for, for women, but also for like the UN sustainable development goals, aiming to achieve gender equality. And when to address gender inequality is also for economic growth. If you have more and more women in the informal sector or in unpaid roles, how is they calling me going to grow?

Is it beneficial? Not economically, socially, politically, politically political, well, we're not going to get anywhere. So we have to look at it from all these different angles. A hundred percent. What about you, ladies? Do you have any more like final words to say? Yeah, I was going to say, like, to just take everything you've been saying there, if you, like, if you're sitting there wondering like how it can.

You know, show itself in global health, as well as the fact that like Josephine, you pointed out economic empowerment. Like if we are acknowledging paid care work, like hopefully we're going to get in Kenya. If we make that happen, then we're allowing women to be, to have more economic empowerment. We talk about this a lot of the times, if I'm more economically empowered, maybe I'm able to make more decisions around family planning.

Maybe I'm able to make more decisions around my, um, you know, options for birth control. Like your

Yes. You're able to actually be empowered to make choices for your own health as a woman, which you always get the choice to do so.

Loza: Uh, yes. I mean, some countries literally require them. To have a say in like reproductive health. Like if the man doesn't agree, the woman can not get birth control. Exactly.

You see, there's like legal structures that are also leading to gender disparity,

Edna: but exactly. And if we are in a household where at least we're trying to balance out our rules, this may be, it's not good. Not at all, both husband and wife, to be able to pursue what they need to do in their careers. And at home, they are able to balance out their works.

If I want to go to medical school. Yes. I know I can. You know, my husband called my back. We can go and I will do my medical school and my education. Um, Well, these different things, guys, gender equality matters for you. And of course

Loza: it's important from so many angles. Yeah. I think for me the last part, we didn't touch on it too much, but, um, yeah, we do need like women in these leadership roles in terms of like, even in health research, because, um, we touched on it a little bit in the first episode as well, where there's a lot of like women's reproductive health is under research.

There's a lot of things that are not at the end of the day. People have their own biases when they come to research and we need to represent all groups to reduce

Edna: this bias and that,

Loza: and when women are, they're making these decisions, you know, maybe we can get better contraceptives because right now we have this scary, um, we can get more understanding of like our own health, um, in print, like in clinical trials, women are underrepresented.

So then, you know, the treatments are not the best for women. We need to just as much as you know, we talked about, we need black people to be represented. We also need women to be represented, to

Edna: be in health. I'm sorry, especially not just women.

Women women in, in all spectrums women in all spectrums, including trans communities, women of color, black women, brown women, we need that representation, disabled women, Theobald women. Yes. All of that representatives all represented. They set before equity and health is on a table. If any group is left behind, leave anyone behind.

No one needs to be in that conversation. Yeah. So I think on that note, we can end it here. This is a beautiful oh women. Oh, thank you very much for listening to this episode of the wall, top financial forecast. I'm Jocelyn I'm Edna and I'm Nosa, and we are global health professionals and your host for the walk health investigation podcast.

Please follow us on our social it's the ground on this call talk cost Twitter. Cover your attack on this call. We have Facebook and LinkedIn one on the investigation, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click that subscribe button. Right now,

Loza: we're not going to threaten you again,

Edna: but, you know, thank you very much for listening and how can we.