Choosing to challenge isn’t enough to make change. And it’s exhausting.

“A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world. From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.” IWD 2021 Theme

I’ve been trying to write this piece for a week now. International Women’s Day flooded my various social media channels with content celebrating people who challenge the status quo but alongside a backdrop of growing anger within the Australian community about the status and treatment of women which culminated in the March 4 Justice events around the country yesterday and today. The space of this week - reflecting, writing, rewriting – has given me time to get closed to expressing why encouraging people to “challenge” misses some important elements of what it takes to create change.

There are positives about #ChooseToChallenge, in particular, the focus that each of us can do something to challenge gender bias and inequality. Based on the social media take-up of the hashtag, it seemed to strike a chord with people. It’s genuinely heartening to see a wide range of people engaging with discussions about gender equity.

When we “challenge” we have to focus on symptoms, not on root causes

A simpler way to say this than what I’ll dive into below: culture fuels behaviour, behaviour fuels culture. If we only tackle behaviours, we’re leaving out half the equation.

Speaking up and challenging isn’t sufficient to make change to the status quo, partially because often we have to challenge the tangible things – a sexist comment, a recruitment process that resulted in limited diversity of candidates, who gets left to clean up the office kitchen – but it’s hard to challenge the social conditions. Social conditions, or culture, often isn’t as tangible. It’s made up of assumptions and beliefs, the unconscious mental shortcuts that we need as such social beings to be able to quickly respond to interpersonal dynamics. We can’t prove assumptions or beliefs in feedback or in a complaint. When we challenge something, we’re asked for specifics, for tangible evidence – who said or did what and when.

We end up playing whack-a-mole – if you successfully challenge and change one thing, more tangible things will come up, again and again – because the root causes aren’t being tackled. It’s like mopping up a puddle over and over again, without ever patching the leaking pipe which is causing the problem in the first place.

Challenging is exhausting for the people doing it

Passion, persistence, and patience. It feels like any time we talk about a successful change in any sector, these three Ps come up. It takes time and energy to create change. Someone who chooses to challenge will often have to have the same conversation, over and over again, sharing their concern or their experience or their story. Sometimes this is because you just need to find the person with the right authority and influence to make change happen. Sometimes this repetition is because you’re presenting a very different view of the world than the people you’re talking to, and you need to convince them that it’s valid. Sometimes you’ve got the right people and they believe that there’s a problem, but the issue being raised isn’t assessed as a priority, so it needs to be raised again and again until it’s seen as pressing. There are 100s more reasons or variations on these themes.

Being a challenger takes a toll on your well-being. Trying to puzzle through the ways to influence others or explain your point of view takes mental energy, on top of what is already needed to do your day-to-day work and life responsibilities. The people who take the time to challenge are often people who are experiencing the negative impacts of a system that isn’t inclusive and accommodating, which takes a further toll on wellbeing and resilience. See: The Lancet; ABC

It’s discouraging to raise something and see nothing happen, or to not be believed, or to watch something that is affecting you deeply be procrastinated on. As a result, not everyone can persist long enough to see change. They run out of energy, time, or belief it will make a difference and burn out instead.

For those who do persist in challenging until a change is achieved, it’s a great feeling. But because we’re often having to challenge symptoms, not root causes, the repetition occurs again and again for multiple issues. You make progress on one issue, then you have to start again on the next. Sometimes if you turn around for too long, the first issue rears its head again.

People have been challenging biased behaviour for over 100 years – it takes more than challenging to make change

Women have been speaking up about how bias and inequality impact them for years and challenging the status quo. First Nations people have been speaking up and challenging for years. People of colour have been speaking up and challenging for years. Members of the LGBT community have been speaking up and challenging for years. People with disabilities have been speaking up and challenging for years. People with mental health conditions have been speaking up and challenging for years. Young people have been speaking up and challenging for years.

Choosing to challenge is not enough to make change. Even if more people start to challenge, and challenge in allyship with those with different lived experience, it’s not enough to make change.

There is a second call to action which goes hand in hand with choose to challenge and that is to choose to listen.

We need to listen to people who challenge, with openness and empathy. I’ve deliberately kept my language throughout this piece neutral. Because while issues of gender bias and inequality have a negative impact on women, issues around bias and inequality do not exclusively impact women. Conversations about gender bias and inequality should not erase women, but nor should they erase others. The reality is that everyone experiences the world in different ways, and unfortunately experience different biases. This makes it even more important that all of us remain open to listening to the experience of others. By listening to others and leaving ourselves open to the possibility that we still have more to learn, through self-reflection, we can take responsibility for changing our own thoughts and actions. But it has to be grounded in a reciprocal act – listening when someone challenges.

Choosing to listen

There are three key elements to choosing to listen:

Listen

Listen to what the person doing the challenging is sharing. Listen deeply, with an open mind, and to the core message being shared. People sometimes get caught up on the tone, language, or emotion used to convey the message. By seeking to understand what the person is trying to share, rather than dismissing someone because of how they’re sharing, we create a basis for change.

Believe

People are often sharing their experience of a situation – feeling, emotions, and perceptions. Accept that these are true for this person. The person might not be able to back it up with evidence, and others might have had different interpretations. But what someone shares is true for them, and you have to start from acceptance of their truth. Telling someone that they’re wrong, dismissing them, or laughing at their experience, prevents the issue from being able to move forward.

Act

When a behaviour, policy, or practice is challenged – seek to understand the issue, look for the root cause(s), and then take action to do something about it. Sometimes action on issues gets so wrapped up in bureaucracy that action on the core issue is limited, delayed, or completely obfuscated. One conversation, or one morning tea, or one training session isn’t enough to make change in issues of gender bias and inequality. Check back in with the people impacted and see if the action is making a difference. Work consistently on changing the core issue – often related to culture or social conditions.