Female empowerment is good for business

Yellowwood Future Architects, a marketing company based in Sandton, released their white paper on how empowering women is better for business.

The white paper, an authoritative report about a complex issue, found that the way business responds to the feminist movement will have a significant impact on their business. Recently the Me Too movement has created more discussions about gender-based discrimination in the workplace.

Their research found that the female economy is worth about $28 trillion (about R408 trillion), which has incredible potential to grow if paired with the increase of women in the workforce and a commitment to address the pay discrepancy between men and women.

Refilwe Maluleke, the managing director of Yellowwood said that research showed that workplaces, where employees feel engaged, outperform their competitors by 147 per cent. Furthermore, they found that employees who are more likely to be engaged at work have a female manager.

The white paper emphasised that employing women in positions of leadership cannot just be about ticking boxes but rather about making a strategic decision to ensure better business and sustainable growth.

Nokuthula Radebe, marketing manager at Yellowwood added, “The empowerment of women is definitely not the disempowerment of men and this is a misnomer that we need to address. The empowerment of women is definitely going to result in a win-win situation.”

She added that conversations between men and women are vital to ensure better business in the future. Businesses should be creating opportunities for both genders and create a workplace culture where gender-based biases can be discussed and overcome.

Businesswomen and an anthropologist also discussed various ways that biases are found within workplaces and how these can be discussed and eventually overcome.

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