Decoding Gender Responsive Standards with Michelle Parkouda, Manager, Research, Standards Council of Canada

Word to the W.I.S.E. #whystandardsmatter

You can read the transcript of the interview with Michelle Parkouda, here:

Host: Michelle Parkouda. It's really great to have you on this season of the Word to the Wise.

[00:00:48] Michelle Parkouda: Thank you Shivraj. It's great to be here.

[00:00:50] Host: Tell us Michelle, a bit about yourself. What led you to research on gender and standards?

[00:00:58] Michelle Parkouda: I'm going to be honest with you. I never imagined I would do research on this topic. Gender equality has always been something that's been really interesting to me, but honestly, I had no idea what standards were. So, a number of years ago, I, I saw a job opportunity and I saw the job description and I went through a description and I thought, oh, I can do all of those things. But the job description was through a recruiter. And so it didn't name the organization. So, I put in my application, I got a call the next day saying, you know, we wanted you to come in. And then they told me what the organization was. And as soon as I heard what the organization was, I said, Hmm, I'm not sure this is for me. And I did that thing that women do where I knew that I was qualified and I met all these qualifications, but then I had that little doubt because I thought that organization, and it's not familiar to me. I don't have enough knowledge of it. So maybe I'm not qualified for this position. And so, I hesitated, but I have a really pushy husband. And so, he's like, no, no, just go for it, go for it. And so I did, I applied and I went through with the interview process and I ended up getting the job. Even when I got the job, I was like, what have I done? I'm not sure this is the right fit for me. , My job was to demonstrate the economic and social value of standards. And so thankfully I've been given a lot of autonomy within that, and there have been initiatives that have taken place. So, in, in particular, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, they have their gender responsive standards initiative. And as I started to hear about that work and work that was happening in other places. It really started to inspire some of the research that I did. And it really, it really resonated with me. And so now here I am.

[00:02:31] Host: And so why is it so important to understand that link between standards and gender equality?

[00:02:39] Michelle Parkouda: So I think, I think like me, a lot of people aren't really aware of what standards are and they don't realize how much of a role they play in our society and in our life. There's research that shows that 93% of global trade is impacted by technical regulations, which include standards. And so what that means is if standards are not as responsive for women, that we are going to be perpetuating inequality just through the regulations that we have. And so I know that might seem a little bit abstract. So let me explain with an example, and I'm going to use an example of something that's become all too familiar to us lately and that's face masks. And so we've got these face masks. Now medical face masks are based on the measurements that you would have for a 20-year-old American male soldier. That doesn't fit a lot of women very well. It doesn't fit a lot of other ethnic groups very well. And so, what we see is that these medical grade face masks are not as responsive to people. And it's meant that women in particular have been at greater risk during the COVID pandemic, particularly those that work in healthcare settings. It's not just face mask. We've seen this with crash test dummies. So crash test dummies are also based on male anthropometry. And what that means is that women are at a higher risk of being injured or killed when they're in a car accident. Because these crash test dummies are not designed for them. So we've got all these examples that we can see in specific sectors and with specific products, but it can actually be broader than that. And so you mentioned some of the research that I did. So a couple years ago, now I did this study where we wanted to look at the relationship between standards and health and safety. The idea being that standards should protect health and safety. And so what we did with this research is we looked at the relationship between participation in standards development and the number of people that die as a result of unintentional injuries or accidents across countries. And we control for some variables that might be kind of confounding. We did find that there's a relationship, but it turns out that that relationship depends on your gender. And so for countries that are more involved in standards development, they have less men dying as a result of unintentional injuries. So, standards are helping to protect men. When we look at the results for women, there is no such relationship. So, it means that involvement in standardization is not protecting women as well as it is protecting men. And that's why it matters.

[00:04:57] Host: Hmm. And what is the current situation? You alluded to looking at different countries and the involvement. With respect to countries and how are you now challenging this gender bias or inequity?

[00:05:12] Michelle Parkouda: Yeah, so I think one of the greatest things that's happened is, um, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, they have their gender declaration for gender responsive standards and standards development. It was released in 2019. And currently there are over 80 signatories. And so, it has been signed by a number of countries and organizations all across the world. What's important about this, this gender declaration is that it asks the signatories to develop a gender action plan. So it's not enough to just sign and say, oh yeah, we agree with this. We actually want them to say, what are you going to do about it? So, the Standards Council of Canada, we've developed an action plan. You know, Rwanda has developed an action plan. A lot of countries have the, the Bureau of Indian Standards, their plan emphasizes improving representation, and also ensuring that standards are gender responsive. There's also regional bodies that are getting involved. And so there's increased awareness, at least at the organizational level about the importance of this and there's activities that are happening.

[00:06:09] Host: And what are the big challenges despite the action plans now there, out there for everyone. And where will we see the most success with changing the status quo as it is today?

[00:06:19] Michelle Parkouda: Mm-hmm . So I'm going to focus on two challenges and then I'll tell you what progress I think we've seen with those. So, the first is around awareness. And so yes, we are seeing things happening at an organizational level. However, sometimes that awareness is limited. And so, uh, about a year ago, ISO and IEC did a survey of their technical committee chairs. So, these are people that are responsible for overseeing the development of standards. When they surveyed them 75% of respondents said that they had not considered gender in the work of their committee. There was this perception that standards are neutral. That gender doesn't matter, that safety doesn't distinguish. And hopefully, you know, if you weren't already convinced you are now that there are safety differences when it comes to standards. And so, we have this large portion of people that still see that standards, you know, that gender doesn't matter. That's what they think. More personally, I can tell you that the first time I gave a presentation on this topic in my organization, I had somebody approach me afterwards. And they said that when they saw that, what I was going to be speaking about, they kind of rolled their eyes and thought, oh, this is another feminist rant and thought that there was no relevance to it. She said, and this is, it was important to note, this is a woman. And so, women and men can also have these both, this perception that standards are gender neutral. And so, she said to me that after the presentation, she realized that, oh, this does matter. There's something to it. So I appreciated the first that she had the courage to tell me this and that also that I was able to change her perceptions of it. Because clearly if she thought this, she wasn't the only one. It's something I've seen. This is where I've seen progress. So, within my organization, you know, At first, it would be me or maybe one of my colleagues that would really speak up on this issue. More recently, I've been in meetings where something will be said, and somebody else will mention the gender considerations before I can. And that's how I can see progress. There's this increased awareness and other people are taking this cause up. The second challenge I see is around representation. And so, standards are developed by committees of experts. And we know that when more women are involved in the development of a product, it makes it more gender responsive. Because we're relying on experts. We often are limited by the labour force. And so in countries, in particular where women do not participate in the labour force as much, it can be harder to get those experts on committees. This can also be limited by the sector. So we have certain sectors where women are not as likely to be employed. And so that means it's going to be harder to attract women in those fields. So representation is an issue that we need to address. But this is something that can be addressed. And so, the, what there is happening more is that there's been better tracking of this information for a long time standards. Developers had no idea who was involved in the development of their committees. They didn't know what the gender composition was. There's still a lot of missing data there, but it is something that is starting to be tracked. And as we do that, we're gonna be in a better position to see if we're making progress, to see which initiatives work. And that's where I can see us having some, seeing some benefits.

[00:09:16] Host: So, awareness and representation. What is the payoff then to make standards, gender responsive?

[00:09:24] Michelle Parkouda: So, everyone benefits from this. And so I'm going explain with some research that I did that has nothing to do with standards, and then I'm going bring it back to standards. So, a couple of years ago, actually, when I was a graduate student, I was having a conversation with my supervisor, and it was during the Olympics. And he said to me, he said, I'd rather live in a country that does well in the Paralympics rather than the Olympics. and, you know, it was just a discussion that was not tied to research, but I thought, huh, that's a really interesting idea. And so I gathered some data and thought I'm going to see if I can demonstrate that it makes a difference. And it turns out that countries that do well in the Paralympics have higher life expectancy and greater happiness for their population as a whole, even after you control for other variables. There's no such relationship for the Olympics. So, what it means is that doing well in the Paralympics is going be better for the population as a whole. So, I told my supervisor this, and he's like, that's great, but you could see the hesitation. He said, you know, it's not sufficient for a publication." And that was of course the goal. And so, I needed to have some other way of replicating this. And so what I decided to do is I looked at soccer. So, with the World Cup and we can see, and because soccer is such an international sport, we looked at how the women do versus how the men do. And we found the same thing. That how the women performed in soccer was more associated with the life expectancy and happiness for the country as a whole was how the men did, had no impact on it. What that research shows is that the treatment of marginalized and disadvantaged groups has benefits for society as a whole. And so now if we bring it back to standards, we can think there's an example of exposure to radiation. And so it turns out that with similar levels of exposure, women actually have a two times higher rate of developing cancer. If we were then to reduce those levels for women, we would get an even further decrease for men. So, both are going to benefit by these reductions. I've focused here on health and safety, but there's greater economic opportunities for women have also been shown to improve productivity and economic growth, which again, benefits both men and women. So, when we have gender responsive standards, it's not just women that benefit, everyone benefits.

[00:11:36] Host: And clearly your study is leading to my next question. So how important is both structural as well as systemic change?

[00:11:44] Michelle Parkouda: So, this is really important because how gender equality is framed. It has an impact on what solutions are considered to be effective. And so , when gender inequality is framed as an issue of women's empowerment, then the solution is to fix the women. And that's not the issue. The women don't need to be fixed. We have structural and systemic issues. Those are the problems that we're facing. So I lead a team, a project team at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and we've been tasked with developing guidelines and how to develop gender responsive standards. In those guidelines, we emphasize the need for a process to ensure that standards are gender responsive. We argue that every standard for every standard we should look to see if there are gender considerations, we want to start with the assumption that there are gender considerations, because then that will impact the way that we go about it. Standards like other fields have a problem, Andro-centrism. So there's this tendency to see men as being default and representative and what that means is that we end up taking results from male data and extrapolating and saying that it applies to women. As you've seen with face masks and crash test dummies this doesn't work. So, what we need to have is better sex to segregated data. It's going to require more research and some investment and time. But when we do that, and as we go through that process, we will end up in a place where we can have standards that are more gender responsive, and that are better serving women as well as men.

[00:13:08] Host: So, more investment and definitely more support and advocacy. What can we do as a community or as individuals?

[00:13:17] Michelle Parkouda: So, there's a lot we can do as a communities and as individuals. So, I mentioned the guidelines that we've been developing. And when we developed those, we were really conscious of wanting to make sure that there were steps that were practical, that anyone could take. You know, certainly if you belong to a standard development organization, you can make some of those systemic changes and you can make requirements in place that will make things more possible. As an individual. And in particular, as an individual involved in standards development, you can also play an important role. And so we've talked about increasing representation and that's probably a little bit more on those standard development organizations, but then what happens when women are present in meetings? And so we know that in meetings, women tend to be interrupted more. We know that their contributions are often dismissed or undermined, and they're not given as much credit for those ideas that they bring forward. So here is where individuals can make a difference. We can check our behaviour. We can see, are we interrupting? Are we acknowledging all the good work that's being done. We can also make sure that we're helping to amplify voices. And so if a woman has a good idea and we think it's a good idea, then we should say, that's a good idea. And acknowledge that this is, that was the individual that brought that idea forward. These are really simple things that can be done, and it doesn't require a lot of work, but it just requires some conscious thought, and we can see improvements.

[00:14:33] Host: And earlier you alluded to the labour force and greater participation. What would be your advice to many women who are coming into the field or discipline of science and standards?

[00:14:46] Michelle Parkouda: So, I worry, this will sound a little bit trite. So, forgive me if it does. But if I think about myself and I mentioned at the beginning that, you know, I very nearly didn't take this job because I thought I don't really know the area and because I doubted myself. And so I would really encourage women to not doubt yourself so much, um, recognize that you have a lot to bring forward and that you don't have to know everything to be able to make a contribution. I would say. So don't doubt yourself. And then the second thing I could say, if I could, is to be persistent. So the World Economic Forum had their latest release of the gender gap and, and the time that it's going to take to close the gender gap and currently closing the gender gap is 132 years away. And so that requires us to be persistent, to ask questions, to propose solutions, because we wanna move that goal post forward rather than further away.

[00:15:36] Host: And talking about moving goal posts forward. What do you see as next steps? Any exciting projects or new thinking on the horizon for you?

[00:15:43] Michelle Parkouda: So, I am really excited about what's to come next. So we've seen that a lot of international standards development organizations are getting involved, that there is more an awareness and more activity around this topic. We've got the guidelines that I mentioned that there's an advanced copy that's been posted. They're going to have the final version available soon. There's also going to be training and videos that will go along with that. And so I think that there's really some great momentum that has been building, and we are going to see some change and activity in the coming years. The other thing I would say is that it's extending beyond these standards bodies. And so there's been discussions on this topic at the World Trade Organization, trade agreements are getting more involved in this, and that will help, as I said to perpetuate and make sure that gender equality is entrenched within our regulations. And so I think this is a really exciting time to be involved in this, because I think that we are going to see more progress.

[00:16:32] Host: And I think we're all very excited to continue the conversation. Be more persistent in closing that gender gap. Michelle Parkouda. Thank you so much for taking out the time to speak to the Word to the Wise.

[00:16:43] Michelle Parkouda: Thank you very much for having me.