Equal in numbers. Is counting what counts?

That specific quality of hope when a man in a position of power says: ‘I see it too’. I have felt it more than once.

My experience met with understanding instead of dismissal.

It feels new.

Finally, a man who sees it too. Change is possible.

Or is it.

The company website mentions sustainability, inclusion, and valuing people.

Taking pride in equal numbers of women and men in the company. Is the counting the real work, though?

Not on the board of directors. Not in decision-making rooms. But in numbers — yes. Equal.

We have all been to public toilets. Equal numbers of cubicles for men and women. And yet there is always a queue for the ladies. The numbers are equal. The experience is not.

Photo by Calvin Ma on Unsplash 

And even if there is a woman present in the room, is it really equality if she acts exactly like a man?

I know her. I have been her. The woman who made it. Senior, capable, respected — in the way the system respects what it recognises as its own.

At what cost — still a woman on the outside but a man on the inside?

And who is responsible for that?

Is it her — she made that choice after all? 

Was there really a choice.

Or is it the system and its enforcers — claiming inclusion while practising permissiveness.

He never had to make that choice. The social structures are built around him and his success. He never had to pick between being himself and what he wants for himself.

She, on the other hand, noticed early that she is not accepted in her fullness. Not her experiences, not her perspectives, not her expressions — if they were different from his.

And she adapted.

Did she do it consciously? Or was it a survival adaptation. She became better than him in the game of being him.

She's someone who made a survival adaptation so complete that she became one of the system's sharpest instruments.

Does he even care.

He praises her. As long as she's diligently serving the system. 

And then blames her for what the system did to her, the minute she stops.

If this raises questions about your own organisation — about what inclusion actually looks like in practice — I'd be glad to hear from you.