Prelims

Half Title Page

Genderwashing in Leadership

Series Title Page

Transformative Women Leaders

Series Editors:

Randal Joy Thompson, Fielding Graduate University, USA

Randal is a Scholar-Practitioner with 40 years of professional experience in international development, serving in countries around the world. A Fellow with the Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University, her research focuses on the commons, gender, education, evaluation, and organization development. She is the past President of ILA’s Women and Leadership Community.

Chrys Egan, Salisbury University, USA

Chrys is the Associate Dean of the Fulton School of Liberal Arts and a Professor of Communication at Salisbury University. Throughout the state, she has been honored with the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Excellence in Mentoring, Maryland Top 100 Women, and Leadership Maryland. Internationally, she earned the ILA Women and Leadership Award for Outstanding Practice with Local Impact.

Dionne Rosser-Mims, Troy University, USA

Dionne is a Full Professor and Vice Chancellor for the Troy University Phenix City Campus. Dionne completed Harvard's Women in Educational Leadership Institute and is the recipient of the 2013 Wallace D. Malone, Jr. Distinguished Faculty Award, a 2016 Chancellor's Fellow, and past President of Troy University’s Faculty Senate serving 2 years consecutively. Dr Rosser-Mims has nearly 20 years of adult education experience including work in collegiate teaching as well as training and development. Dr Rosser-Mims is the cofounder and former coeditor in chief of Dialogues in Social Justice: An Adult Education Journal, a peer-reviewed open-access journal.

The Transformative Women Leaders Series is published in collaboration between the International Leadership Association (ILA) and Emerald Publishing. Celebrating women leaders and the leadership styles they employ to achieve success, the books in this series highlight successful context-specific leadership approaches and the moral qualities of endurance. Serving as a model and inspiration for young women leaders entering the workforce and for women leaders currently facing challenges, it provides a community for women leaders around the world.

Title Page

Genderwashing in Leadership: Power, Policies and Politics

Edited by

Rita A. Gardiner

Western University, Canada

Wendy Fox-Kirk

University of Birmingham, UK

Carole J. Elliott

Sheffield University Management School, UK

And

Valerie Stead

Lancaster University Management School, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Rita A. Gardiner, Wendy Fox-Kirk, Carole J. Elliott and Valerie Stead.

Individual chapters © 2024 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83753-989-5 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-988-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-990-1 (Epub)

Series Foreword

The International Leadership Association (ILA) is pleased to collaborate with Emerald Publishing on Transformative Women Leaders, a dynamic exploration of women leaders who are making a difference in their communities and organizations around the world. Providing both inspiration and model, the series delves into the “why” behind these leaders' journeys, exploring the barriers they face and the unique perspectives and approaches they bring to leadership. These women are not simply overcoming obstacles, they're redefining what leadership is and demonstrating the power of diverse voices to drive creative innovation and catalyze global transformations that impact the globe's systemic challenges.

Transformative Women Leaders continues the work of the ILA's groundbreaking series, Women and Leadership: Research, Theory, and Practice, which presented cutting-edge research, robust theoretical frameworks, and practical applications that sparked vital dialogue around the advancement of women in leadership. This new series advances the conversation by presenting additional, compelling evidence of women's unique leadership approaches and their effectiveness in various contexts. These practical examples will further equip women with the knowledge and know-how they need to navigate the leadership landscape. Importantly, Transformative Women Leaders will fuel further research into the complexities and intersections of gender and leadership.

Both series were conceived of, led by, and worked on by members of ILA's Women and Leadership member community, part of ILA's global community of leaders and leadership researchers, educators, and development specialists who believe that leadership is the key to a just and thriving future for all. We are proud that Transformative Women Leaders contributes to advancing the work outlined in ILA's mission, vision, and purpose and provides an exciting opportunity for people to connect and engage with one another while exploring innovative thinking, creating new resources, and multiplying our collective impact for the good of people and planet.

Cynthia Cherrey

CEO & President

International Leadership Association

ilaglobalnetwork.org

About the Editors

Dr Rita A. Gardiner is an Associate Professor, Critical Policy, Equity, and Leadership Studies, Faculty of Education, Western University, Canada. Her publications include articles in Gender, Work and Organization, Business Ethics Quarterly, Leadership, and Organization Studies. Rita led a project team on a SSHRC-funded grant that examined the implementation of gender-based violence policies in Ontario universities. She is currently working on a monograph with Dr Katy Fulfer on questions of home and belonging in the work of the political theorist, Hannah Arendt.

Dr Wendy Fox-Kirk's research examines gender and power in organizations. She has, together with colleagues, developed the concept of genderwashing in organizations and how it creates a myth of equality. Recipient of the 2019 ILA Outstanding Emerging Scholar Award in Women's Leadership, publications include articles in Gender in Management: An International Journal, and Advances in Developing Human Resources and, book chapters, Tolstikov-Mast, Y., Bieri, F. & Walker, J.L. (Eds) (2021). Handbook of International and Cross-cultural Leadership Research Processes; Madsen, S. R. (Ed.). (2017). Handbook of Research on Gender and Leadership, and in Storberg Walker, J., & Haber Curran, P. (2017). Theorizing Women & Leadership.

Carole J. Elliott, PhD, is a Professor of Organization Studies at Sheffield University Management School and Associate Dean Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Development. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Human Resource Development International and is currently an Associate Editor of Gender, Work and Organization. Carole's principal research interest lies in the field of gender and leadership, including critical examinations of representations of women's leadership in the media and popular culture. Carole publishes across a wide range of internationally recognized peer review journals. One of her most recent publications is the book coedited with Valerie Stead and Sharon Mavin, the Edward Elgar Handbook of Research Methods on Gender and Management.

Dr Valerie Stead is a Professor of Leadership and Director of the LUMS Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership at Lancaster University Management School (LUMS), UK. Valerie has a research reputation of international standing in gender, leadership and learning, with a focus on applying and advancing critical approaches to explore women's leadership, including the role of popular culture in women's career advancement. Valerie is currently working with international partners on the EU Horizon 2020 funded TARGETED MPI project to develop, implement and monitor gender equality plans in Business and Management Schools. Valerie's research is widely published including in Leadership; Gender, Work & Organization; Management Learning; Gender in Management, and Organization Studies. Most recently, Valerie has published, with Carole J. Elliott and Sharon Mavin, the Edward Elgar Handbook of Research Methods on Gender and Management. Valerie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, and a Senior Fellow of the HEA.

About the Contributors

Dr Hayley Baker is an Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies at Brescia University College whose scholarly interests include leadership, gender, and sport. Her research has focused on addressing the underrepresentation of women coaches at Canadian universities by exploring normalized institutional practices and processes. More recently, Dr Baker has examined the implementation of gender-based violence policies in universities and the institutional responses to gender-based violence within Canadian university sport. Her work is featured in journals such as Gender in Management: An International Journal and Human Resource Development International.

Laura L. Bierema is a Professor, Program of Adult Learning, Leadership, and Organization Development in the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia. Author of over 150 publications, Dr Bierema's scholarly interests include adult and organizational learning, critical HRD, women's learning and leadership, career development, and coaching.

Adrian L. Bitton is a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program. Her research interests include socially just leadership education, leadership learning and pedagogy, and critical leadership studies. She was the recipient of the 2022 ACPA Coalition of Women's Identities (CWI) Research and Scholarship Award. She has two chapters in Rooted and Radiant: Women's Narratives of Leadership (2023). Before her doctoral studies, Adrian worked as a leadership educator. She received her Bachelor's degree in leadership studies and rhetoric and communication studies from the University of Richmond and her Master's degree from the University of Maryland, where she had a curricular concentration in student leadership development. Adrian identifies as a white, first-generation, Jewish, cisgender woman who holds dual citizenship. Her identities have deeply influenced her experience in the academy and the world and guide her commitments to equity and justice.

Dr Jennifer Chisholm is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at Lakehead University. Her interdisciplinary research is focused in several areas including sexual and gender-based violence in academia, with a focus on institutional policies and responses. Her work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and featured in journals such as Human Resource Development International. Dr Chisholm is a feminist social scientist with methodological training in institutional ethnography, content analysis and community-based research.

Gelaye Debebe is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Graduate Program in Organizational Sciences at the George Washington University. Her research has explored learning in the context of power and difference within interorganizational relationships between dissimilar and unequal groups, women's leadership programs, and talent development over the life course. In addition to several journal articles and book chapters, she was a co-guest editor of a special issue on women's leadership programs for the Journal of Management Education and guest editor of a special issue of the European Journal of Training and Development on authentic talent development in sociocultural context. She is also the author of two books: Navigating power: Cross-cultural competence in Navajoland (Lexington) and Women's leadership development: Caring environments and paths to transformation (Routledge).

Ms Kasey Egan holds an MA in Social Justice Studies with a specialization in Women's Studies from Lakehead University and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies at Western University, Canada. Kasey studies on-campus sexualized and gender-based violence and the sociology of safety. Kasey also works in frontline feminist spaces as a Substance Abuse and Mental Health counselor at a nonprofit in Mission, BC. She has a forthcoming publication in the book entitled Gender in Canadian Academia.

Cihat Erbil, PhD, works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Business Administration at Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University, Turkey. His research centers on organizational sociology and critical management studies. Through his scholarly investigations, he endeavors to amplify the narratives of marginalized groups and enhance their visibility within the field.

Gina Grandy is a Professor and Dean with the Haskayne School of Business at University of Calgary, located in Alberta, Canada. She previously served as Dean and Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Programs) at the Hill and Levene Schools of Business, University of Regina. Her research interests are in leadership, gender and women in leadership, identity, stigmatized work, competitive advantage and case writing. Her work has been published in outlets such as Human Relations, Gender, Work & Organization, Management Learning, British Journal of Management, and Journal of Business Ethics. She is the Co-Editor of the Handbook of Qualitative Research in Business and Management (2018) and Stigma, Work and Organizations (2017) and past Editor of Case Research Journal.

Paige Haber-Curran, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education and School Psychology at Texas State University. Her research focuses on gender and leadership, college student leadership development, emotionally intelligent leadership, and teaching pedagogy. She has over 20 published articles and chapters that focus on gender and leadership. Further, Paige has coedited two books (Critical Perspectives on Gender and Student Leadership, New Directions for Student Leadership, 2017, with D. Tillapaugh and Theorizing Women and Leadership: New Insights and Contributions from Multiple Perspectives, Information Age Publishing, 2017, with J. Storberg-Walker) and coedited one journal issue (Advancing Scholarly Discourse on gender and leadership in higher education, Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 2024, with D. Tillapaugh) on the topic of gender and leadership. In 2018, Paige served as a Fulbright Scholar, conducting research and teaching on topics of leadership at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria.

Maylon Hanold is a Teaching Professor in the Management Department at Seattle University. She teaches courses in leadership and workplace diversity and inclusion across two MBA programs. She led the reimagination of the sport management program to become an MBA in Sport and Entertainment program, establishing partnerships with the Seahawks, Mariners, Sounders FC, Storm, Kraken, Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle U Athletics, OL Reign and others committed to working together to identify actions and implement solutions that address historic inequities in the sport industry. She also works as a workplace equity consultant. She has published in journals such as Sociology of Sport and Advances in Developing Human Resources as well as written book chapters on sport leadership and gender and leadership.

Dr Liza Howe-Walsh is a Professor in Global Leadership at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Liza has published numerous internationally recognized journal articles in a range of top-rated journals such as International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Business Research and Journal of International Management and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Global Mobility and Studies in Higher Education. Her research has led to multiple invited keynote speeches for both academic and practitioner audiences to support greater inclusion of Women in Leadership. She is the Emeritus President of the Women and Leadership Community, International Leadership Association.

Ms Syeda Tuba Javaid is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at Western University, Canada, specializing in Critical Policy, Equity, and Leadership Studies. Tuba has been teaching at the university level in Pakistan for nine years. Her doctoral research focuses on addressing the underrepresentation of women's leadership in Pakistani higher educational institutions. Tuba has published articles in Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, European Journal of Training and Development Journal of Education & Social Sciences, RAUSP Management Journal, and the JISR Management and Social Sciences & Economics (JISR-MSSE).

Natalie Jester completed her PhD at the University of Bristol, UK, in 2020. She is currently a Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire. Her work focuses on representations of security in digital spaces, asking how these might facilitate militarized violence, broadly speaking. Within this, she is interested in gender, state identity, and secrecy/transparency. She has published in journals such as Media, War and Conflict, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Millennium: Journal of International Studies. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and her research interests are reflected in her teaching, which covers a range of modules related to international issues and identity.

Dr Susan Kirk is a Reader in International Human Resource Management at Newcastle University (NCL). She is the Deputy Subject Group Head and the Research, Scholarship, and Impact Lead within the Leadership, Work and Organization Subject Group. She is a Co-Director in a multidisciplinary Center of Research Excellence that brings together engineering, medical sciences, social science, and business to engage in research through collaborations with external organizations to create impact. Susan is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). She is an interpretivist researcher in the fields of identity, gender, talent and mobility. Her work has been published in several book chapters and journals such as Work, Employment and Society, Global Networks, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Review, and the European Management Review. Susan is the Secretary of the Human Resource Management Special Interest Group in the British Academy of Management.

Emmanouela Mandalaki is Associate Professor of Organizations at NEOMA Business School and coordinator of the research group Inclusion, Diversity, Equality. In her research, Emmanouela engages with (auto)ethnographic and qualitative methodologies heavily informed by personal experiences and her ethnographic engagements within vulnerable contexts. She combines these with feminist thinking and creative forms of writing to explore alternative ways of engaging with questions of embodiment, ethics, gender, diversity, inclusion, social inequalities and affect in organizations. Emmanouela has served as Co-Editor for the Feminist Frontiers section of Gender, Work and Organization. She was recently appointed as Associate Editor for Management Learning and serves as member of the editorial review board for the journals Organization Studies and Organization. Her work appears in international book volumes and international academic outlets.

Sharon Mavin is a Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies. She has held Dean, Director and Associate Dean roles at Newcastle, Roehampton, and Northumbria Universities. Sharon is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Royal Society of Arts and the British Academy of Management. She was awarded the British Academy of Management Medal for Leadership, 2021, added to the Northern Power Women Power List, 2022, is past Chair of the University Forum of HRD and past Chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Recent research about women leaders and work-caused trauma, gendered competition and gendered media representations is published in Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management; Gender, Work and Organization; Management Learning; Human Relations; and Gender in Management an International Journal. Sharon coedited the Routledge Handbook of Research Methods on Gender in Management, 2021.

Mustafa F. Özbilgin is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Brunel Business School, London. He also holds two international positions: Co-Chaire Management et Diversité at Université Paris Dauphine and Visiting Professor of Management at Koç University in Istanbul. His research focuses on equality, diversity and inclusion at work from comparative and relational perspectives.

Dr Victoria Pagan is a Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at Newcastle University Business School, UK. With a decade of experience in economic development and regeneration consultancy, she joined Newcastle in 2011 and has spent her academic career focused on researching power in organizations and organizing. Her most recent work examines knowledge, its generation, uses, marginalizations, epistemic violence, and epistemic injustice; moral emotions and aporias; and social justice. Victoria has published recently on silencing practices and their embodied effects. She is the Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the School, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Certified Management and Business Educator with the Chartered Association of Business Schools in the United Kingdom.

Dr Natasha T. Turman is the Director for the Women in Science and Engineering Residence Program at the University of Michigan. Her scholarship and practice examine gender, diversity, and critical leadership development in higher education. These targeted foci allow her to explore systems, processes, and dominant narratives in higher education to advocate for impactful change. She promotes equity and inclusive learning, teaching, and research in STEM education through her work with the Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) Collaborative. She is an active researcher with several publications and national and international conference presentations, including coauthoring Leadership Theory: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Critical Perspectives (Dugan, Turman, Barnes & Associates, 2017). Dr Turman completed her PhD in Higher Education from Loyola University Chicago in 2017. She holds an MS Ed in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Old Dominion University and a BS in Chemistry from Spelman College.

Dr Rosie Walters is a Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University, UK, with research interests in feminist, poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches to international relations. Her research focuses on how girls negotiate girl power discourses in global politics, finding space to put forward their own vision of what empowerment means to them. Her PhD research explored girls' feminist activism in schools in the United Kingdom, the United States and Malawi as part of the UN Foundation's Girl Up campaign. More recently, she has written about corporate genderwashing. She has published in Review of International Political Economy, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Gender and Development. Her first book, Girls, Power and International Development: Activism and Agency in the Global North and South, will be published in 2025.

Series Editor's Preface

As the three editors of the International Leadership Association's (ILA's) new book series Transformative Women Leaders, we are pleased to launch our series with Genderwashing in Leadership: Policies, Practices, and Politics. The overall intention of our series is to celebrate women leaders of the world working on the cutting edge of the postpandemic era in which paradigms about leadership have shifted and complex global challenges are forcing countries to work together to find innovative solutions. One of the defining qualities of this emerging world is transparency. It has become imperative to pull off the masks of hypocrisy and declare that “things are not always as they are proclaimed to be.” This is exactly what the authors of this volume do by exposing genderwashing in several walks of life. As the book editors argue in their working definition of genderwashing, organizational rhetoric “often differs from the affective, embodied experiences of those who work or study in organizations…creating the myth of gender equity in the workplace” (p. 2). Moreover, many of the book authors tear down the barriers between rigid academic writing and creative writing that emerges from deep within themselves, exposing them as self-reflective, sometimes vulnerable women. Breaking down such barriers has also become more acceptable in our currently less rigidly demarcated reality. Author Emmanouela Mandalaki unabashedly lauds (p. 9) that.

I am a woman.

I am a writer.

I am an academic writer.

I am a poet.

I am a feminist.

I write (about) my body and other bodies.

As a result of exposing rhetorical duplicity and tearing down barriers between the impersonal and the personal, the authors reveal themselves as transformational women leaders, the kind of women that we are intent on applauding in our series. We trust that you will find this volume enlightening and inspiring.

Randal Joy Thompson, Chrys Egan, and Dionne Rosser-Mims

Foreword

Laura L. Bierema

Kick ‘Em When They're Up, Kick ‘Em When They're Down: Exposing Dirty Laundry in Leadership and Organization Studies

– Laura L. Bierema

The provocative chapters in Genderwashing in Leadership: Policies, Practices, and Politics delve into contradictions between organizational rhetoric and striving for gender equity, against their sexist, racist, homophobic actions. Don Henley's (1982) song “Dirty Laundry” kept popping into my mind as I read the book. The lyrics “Kick ‘em when they're up, kick ‘em when they're down, kick ‘em all around” exemplify the wretched truth that patriarchal structures are designed to protect white heterosexual men at the expense of all others. Editors Rita A. Gardiner, Wendy Fox-Kirk, Carole J. Elliott, and Valerie Stead expose the harsh reality of genderwashing: Hollow promises and virtue signaling fail to create structural change and equity. Genderwashing in Leadership airs this dirty secret, calling out these contradictions in multiple contexts through critique and advocacy for change.

The term “dirty laundry” is traceable to a French proverb: “Il faut laver son linge sale en famille” (Zola, 2023) – “One should wash one's dirty linen at home.” Dirty laundry refers to unflattering and embarrassing truths people and organizations secretly conceal. Genderwashing in Leadership illuminates the dirty laundry behind organizations that genderwash, genderbleach, whitewash, genderspin, rainbowwash, rainbowburn, and silence meaningful structural change efforts for women and other marginalized identities. Genderwashing proclaims gender equity as a virtue but corrodes it in reality.

Genderwashing is not just the disingenuous advocacy of gender equity, but also denials that equity is necessary, or overt arguments that equity seeking is destructive. The early days of the Israel and Hamas war put US women university presidents under scrutiny for responses to antisemitic campus incidents. New York Times columnist Kate Zernike wondered why Drs Claudine Gay of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Elizabeth Magill of University of Pennsylvania were the only presidents summoned to testify before Congress. The hearings ultimately resulted in Gay and Magill resigning and pressure from prominent men donors to oust Magill as well. Zernike (2024) mused,

If the question was safety, why didn’t Congress summon the (male) presidents of Yale and the University of Chicago, where pro-Palestinian groups occupied quads and administrative offices? Underlying the conversations was the most maddening, familiar and ultimately unanswerable question of all: Would a man have been treated in the same way? (para. 8)

Zernike (2024) quoted Nancy Gernter, law professor at Harvard and retired federal judge, who lamented, “Had there been three men at that table, it would not have gone from ‘bad performance’ to ‘you're not qualified’” (para. 11). The condemnation of only women speaks volumes about powerful elites, mostly men, who are emblematic of the gender discrimination dominating education, government, and business. They are also some of gender equity's loudest critics. The genderwashing of these women presidents exemplifies Thomas et al.'s (2013) illustration of how women of color go from “Pet-to-Threat” as they gain organizational power. Early in their careers, “pets” are regarded less as professionals and treated in childlike ways with guidance on how to behave in and assimilate to dominant culture. As women resist the pet status and gain power, colleagues question their competence, commit microaggressions, and sometimes recast them as “threats.”

Perhaps equity backlash no longer qualifies as dirty laundry. Privileged, billionaire white men like Bill Ackman and Elon Musk vocally critique DEI – Diversity Equity and Inclusion. Ackman, who publicly disparaged Harvard President Claudine Gay and worked to oust her for plagiarism once the antisemitic crisis waned, said he believed DEI is “the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard” (Wei & Tan, 2024). Elon Musk urged “DEI must die” (Kay, 2024).

DEI professionals are vacating their positions twice as fast as those in non-DEI positions, and hiring of diverse workers had declined in companies devaluing DEI (Ayas et al., 2023). Yet, companies with active DEI functions have higher representations of Black, Asian, and Hispanic hires than those without (Ayas et al., 2023). My own institution has expunged DEI from titles, office names, and hiring discussions due to political pressure. Despite all the benefits of a diverse workforce, CEOs’ eschewing equity appear asleep at the wheel, especially since companies with DEI teams have higher employee ratings on culture and values, overall rating, and DEI rating (Ayas et al., 2023).

Genderwashing impedes or destroys efforts to achieve equity. Rather than getting the support and power to create structural and demonstrable commitment to increasing workplace equity, DEI professionals are often tasked with the impossible: Single-handedly changing the culture but lacking power to do so while holding racist and sexist leaders accountable for more diverse hiring, equity leadership, and allyship. Sadly, public outcry seems to be the only motivator of change (Mystal, 2023). Paraphrasing Henley's lyrics, it is time to take workplaces' dirty secrets and dirty little lies about gender equity and cut them down to size. Heteropatriarchy does not come out in the wash.