In this post I want to explore social inequality and what people in positions of social privilege can do to improve the situation by using their privilege to make things a tiny bit more equal.

Are you privileged ? Here are some questions to help you figure it out:

• Are your parents still married?
• Did you grow up with a father figure in the home?
• Did you go to private school?
• Did you live in middle-upper or upper-class suburbs?
• Have you had white male leaders ask you to do coffee catchups or ask your opinion on the team or how things are running in your business?

Here is a video that helps show you why those questions are important:

I’m a Privileged White Male (PWM). I’ve spent a lot of time deliberating as to whether it’s something to be ashamed of. There have been moments where I’ve felt guilty because I did absolutely nothing to deserve the privilege. Why should I get these benefits I don’t deserve?

And then there’s the other side of it: does it mean I should change the way I treat others from less privilege? Is it belittling to treat others differently given this awareness? Where does pity fit into the mix? These are questions that are delicate, but I believe that there are clear answers.

The purpose of this article is to influence you to share my belief that:

==If you are from privilege, you are morally obligated to push yourself to be the best you can be, and to raise up anyone of less privilege.==

As a privileged individual, there are two paths you can choose for yourself:

• kick back and enjoy the benefits
• push yourself to make the world a better place, and leverage your privilege to prioritise others over yourself

I, for one, am desperately trying to be better, and put other’s needs above my own wherever possible.

There are many other forms of socioeconomic advantage that I haven’t covered here — things like poverty, domestic violence, drug addiction, sexual abuse, parents in prison, lack of access to education. There are so many ways that things go wrong, and so much that can be done to help people in those situations. This article focuses primarily on practical advice related to disadvantage related to gender and race.

Don’t Just Kick Back and Enjoy the Benefits

This is the default path. Humans generally tend towards ease. And my goodness is it easy to walk the well trodden path of your parents (who are usually also from privilege), and just: get a job, get promoted, get marriedhavebabieshaveamidlifecrisisponderyourexistencerealiseyoucouldhaveachievedmore and die.

I watch this happen all the time. When I worked in a senior position at Amazon Web Services, I was asking my friend Matt (who is a PWM and helped me get the job… of course) what the org structure was and who the leaders were. As he walked through I rapidly noticed a trend: Russell, John, Steve, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Alex, Paul, David. I had already noticed in my first week how many white males there were walking around. I’ve worked in tech my whole life so it was weird seeing all these white guys: most of the best software engineers are not PWMs.

I asked Matt if any of the PWMs were under 6’2”. Yes… one out of the fifteen. I mean: really? ==I also noticed that 70% of the PWMs worked way less hard than many other people from varied backgrounds have worked in my career.== I could see what this place was: a place where people came to make huge amounts of money with optional amounts of effort and to influence the industry at large. I was a Solutions Architect, a technical leader and allied with the Sales Reps to influence business in technology leaders in the value of cloud.

Amazon is an amazing place, and I learnt a vast amount there. Many people worked their arse off, because they recognised how crazy an opportunity it was to build yourself into a global industry leader (maybe 30% took this path). But there were plenty that you could see were there because they were PWMs that wanted to earn bank and chill.

So: I’ve seen it before and I think it’s hugely immoral. Not to want to have an easy life, and not because you want to be happy. Nothing wrong with that! The problem is that YOU HAVEN’T EARNED IT.

Anyway, to give you a feel for what these environments often look like (and no, Amazon was definitely not this bad), here’s a fantastic Pixar representation of how so many PWMs behave in business:

Use your power for good

How can you do this?

There are loads of ways.

I originally wrote the skeleton for this article the week before International Women’s Day, and it was the source of inspiration. I was asked by an ex-team member to speak on a panel of advocates for females in business, and realised: OMG I have many strong opinions on this topic. When I was managing her, I realised how much of a concerted effort I had to make to ensure that she was treated as an equal to other members of the team, and other leaders in the business. I am so grateful she noticed how much I cared, but mostly I just wanted her to shine because she was a fucking genius.

So yeah: another great way is to become a feminist.

Become a Feminist

Here are some pro tips for how to ensure you’re actually making a difference as a feminist:

Don’t let guys cut off gals

When you observe a male cut off a female during meetings or discussions, try saying “Excuse me Mike, you just cut Priyanka off. Priyanka, what were you saying?”

Be super obvious about it when you cut off a female in a meeting. If you do it, almost not matter what you should say “sorry, I cut you off” and give them the mic back. If it’s important, come back to it but this sets the tone for how your team will treat each other. Set a good example as people WILL emulate your behaviour.

Hug consistently

If you initiate hugs with females but initiate hand shakes with males, you’re being sexist. Don’t get me wrong, if a female goes in for a hug that’s totally different — you don’t have to be a cold bastard. But by going in to hug a female I think you’re showing that you place more importance on your personal relationship with them than your professional relationship. If you’re not actually friends with them and hang out outside of work, then what does that say about how highly you respect them professionally? Not much, in my opinion. If you want to hug women, you have to be comfortable hugging men. Again, if you’re a hugger (like me) then that’s fine — you just need to be consistent.

Become an Advocate for Minorities

Treat people equally

When you say “G’day mate!” to Matt, and “Hi Jin Yang”, you’re actually excluding them. The subtitle that Jin Yang reads in his head as he looks at you speaking is “we can’t be mates because you’re only comfortable being ‘mates’ with white males”. I saw this loads in AWS sales teams. Either stop calling Matt “mate”, or call Jin Yang “mate”… awkward as that may make you feel. The social consistency is more important than your awkwardness. Make sure you emanate 0% awkward: OWN IT AND MEAN IT. If you won’t be mates with Jin Yang, you shouldn’t be mates with Matt. If you’re actually friends outside work, different story… but so often that’s not the case.

High five more

You high five James but not Shaniqua. High fiving actually transcends gender and culture so this is an easy one to do!

Implement mechanisms to reduce promotion bias

When we think about which person in your team you want to promote to be a manager, we always think about this in advance. Who has the most respect? Who has the most influence? Who has the best skills? The reality is that unless you have written down specific questions and weighed them up as criteria for selection, you’re being biased. All humans are biased and you’re not a special snowflake that magically transcends the rest of us. You need a system to get rid of it. The classic way that this plays out is that you, a white male, will be inclined to promote another white male because you think they they have excellent communication skills, and are good at free-thinking in a variety of situations. There is a major issue here: often you haven’t provided a clear set of guidance to the team on what is required for promotion, so they simply don’t know what they need to do because… they’re not from a background of privilege! That white male (Mike? Andrew?) is good at those 2 things not because of some magical innate talent, but because their world valued those and they had a fucking head start. So you need to ask yourself:

1. Have I made it clear what skills are required of managers?
2. Have I created an environment where everyone is equally free to demonstrate those skills?
3. Have I asked the various team members about their career aspirations?

If the answer is “no” to any of those 3, you’re being biased.

Conclusion

Social inequality is a complex web of beliefs, behaviours, habits and complacent thinking. My goal here was to highlight some ways that some people can make some improvements. I used to believe that the best approach was to try and ignore social differences, and just treat people equally. After practicing that approach for over a decade I just felt like more deliberate action is required, and that means observing social differences, discussing them and trying to behave differently… and better.