Addressing Gender Bias in Conservation Organizations

It may or may not be comforting to women working in conservation today to recall that female environmental heroes who came before them were able to achieve important victories even within the structural bias against women that existed in the past.

Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking 1962 work on the dangers of pesticides, was maligned as “emotional,” “shrill” and “hysterical.” When she asked, “What is silencing the voices of spring,” her answer — the pesticide DDT — provoked the manufacturer and others to disparage her both personally and professionally. Yet she and her book inspired the modern conservation movement.

Fifty-six years after the publication of Silent Spring, women in the field of conservation, including those who lead or work for land trusts, still experience some of the same gender bias as women of Carson’s era did.

But with the advent of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, and the accountability they call for, a bright spotlight once again shines on women’s issues.

Examining gender bias in conservation organizations, the words of oceanographer Sylvia Earle — the first female chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — come to mind: “It isn’t a matter of how rough and tough you are, or whether or not you can grow a beard. It is ‘Can you do the job?’”

Recognizing the Problem

A 2018 study of full- and part-time employees by the Pew Research Center found that about 42% of working women said they had experienced gender discrimination at work, contrasted to 22% of men who were asked the same question. The discrimination included being treated as if they weren’t competent, feeling isolated in the workplace, experiencing repeated small slights at work and being paid less than men doing the same job.

The Pew study also found that the gender pay gap has narrowed since 2016 due in part to women’s gains in education and work experience, but it remains persistent. And Black, Latina and Native American women experience an even larger gap than white and Asian women.

Assessing the land trust community, the Land Trust Alliance’s 2017 Land Trust Salaries and Benefits Survey gathered data from organizations in 47 states and the District of Columbia, comparing wages across job categories and experience levels. For executive directors, it also asked respondents to identify their gender. Educational Services Manager Katie Chang estimates that about 280 (44%) of staffed land trusts nationwide are led by women. However, the salary survey found “on average, male executive directors are paid about $10,000 more than female directors with the same years of experience, budget and number of staff. This disparity persists regardless of whether the organization offers better benefits or more workplace flexibility,” says Chang.

At the same time that the Alliance was looking at pay disparity, some land trusts were, too. The female executive director of one land trust discovered that a young man and a young woman hired about the same time for similar jobs were making slightly different amounts of money — in part because the man had asked for more. “The people were in their mid-20s, and we realized that if we didn’t correct this, we were putting them on a trajectory where in 10 or 20 years, the discrepancy could be really substantial.”

Dianne Russell (pictured at right), president of the Institute for Conservation Leadership and a frequent consultant to land trusts, led a Rally 2017 workshop on gender bias and will expand on that with a seminar at Rally 2018. “Within the land trust community I think a lot of it came into focus when we started hearing stories — both in one-on-one coaching sessions and in the collective group — about women executive directors who were struggling with their leadership being taken seriously,” says Russell. “In some cases their leadership was being undercut. In others they were experiencing what I would call bullying and harassment.”

Creating Change

After nearly five years as executive director of the accredited Mississippi Valley Conservancy in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Carol Abrahamzon (pictured at right) could feel proud of the strides the conservancy had made under her leadership, showing significant growth in donors, sponsors and staffing while protecting nearly 4,000 acres of forests, farms, prairies and streams from development (the conservancy has protected over 20,000 acres in total). At budget time this year, she reviewed staff salaries. “I wanted to make sure that some of the folks who were a little bit newer and hadn’t been hired at a high enough level or were working their way up were being compensated adequately.” The Alliance’s salary survey was the perfect resource. And then she looked at her own pay.

“When I saw from the salary survey how much ‘under’ I was, I decided to put together a proposal to advocate for myself and all that I had done. And the interesting thing was that, even with the information from the salary survey, in my initial proposal I asked for less than the average.” When her businesswoman daughter read it, she commented, “Why would you advocate for less than what they’re telling you you’re worth?” Abrahamzon revised her proposal. “My executive committee reviewed it, and they came back with more than I asked for. I was shocked.”

In conversations with women leaders, Russell has noticed that “We often inadvertently disempower ourselves, and because of historical patterns — what we’ve done as women to make things work in a biased world—it takes a lot of energy and focus to shift.”

“It’s not a simple equation that the men are at fault and they’re doing this to us,” she says. “It’s a lot more complex and more difficult. Bias happens in our institutions no matter what our intentions are. I think empowering women is as important as helping men be self-aware about that dynamic.”

The accredited Columbia Land Trust (CLT) in the Pacific Northwest wants to elevate equity as a core organizational value, according to Executive Director Glenn Lamb. They’ve created a statement of equity commitments, based on the belief that “a more diverse, inclusive conservation movement is a stronger, more innovative movement.” The staff — and the board to a lesser extent — have been attending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings.

“The approach that we’re taking is focusing on each one of us as individuals and how we may unintentionally be allowing racism and sexism to continue to exist,” says Lamb. “We have been trying to develop some practical tools to interrupt biased behavior. We’re not trying to belittle or judge or make someone feel that they have to shut themselves down. What we’re trying to do is cultivate a spirit of curiosity around the fact that we all have implicit bias.”

During a discussion of finances at an organizational meeting, CLT Finance Director Amy Costello gave a detailed report about budget performance to targets. After she’d made her presentation, one person twice asked specific questions about the financials — questions that were clearly answered in the report she had just given. Both queries were directed to Lamb, not to her. “It wasn’t as though he was looking for additional, supplemental information that only the executive director would be able to give him,” remembers Costello. “Previously, I thought it was just common practice. I thought nothing of it. They’re just asking for confirmation from my supervisor. It’s something that has happened my entire career. Now that our training has made me aware of it, it does bother me, and I won’t be afraid to speak up.”

Looking at Leadership

While many environmental nonprofits are staffed mostly by women, the leadership is often male, including the boards of directors. Seven of the eight employees at the Mississippi Valley Conservancy are women, but female representation on the board is less than 25%, says Abrahamzon, even though the organization reviews board balance every year. “More men crop up on the list really really fast when you have a lot of men already on the board and on the governance committee. They’re thinking of people they know, and the people they know are men. It isn’t intentional — we actually are trying to be more diverse. But it has been hard and it has been slow.”

Meagan Cupka (pictured at right), assistant director of the accredited Blue Ridge Land Conservancy in Roanoke, Virginia, thinks part of the problem might be the generation of older, retired white men that typically comprises board members. As Abrahamzon noted, like reaches out to like. Unless you diversify the search committee, “you’re likely to keep the same ratio of men to women,” says Cupka.

The accredited Southern Plains Land Trust in Centennial, Colorado, creates and protects a network of shortgrass prairie preserves to ensure a future for native animals and plants. The three-person staff includes two women and one man. The six board members are all women. Nicole Rosmarino was hired as executive director in 2011 after having worked for 15 years for conservation groups run by men. “I loved those groups, but I also have long thought that women can bring effective and creative approaches to conservation.” The board gradually became all-female as men stepped off and women recruited other women.

“There shouldn’t be glass ceilings in our world, only the wide, deep-blue prairie sky,” says Rosmarino.

A Concerted Effort at All Levels

Elizabeth Lillard is the coordinator of the Women in Conservation (WIC) Leadership Summit for the National Wildlife Federation. “You hear a lot about leadership training for women in business, but there really is nothing similar for women in conservation [note the exception of the Alliance’s Leadership Program, 60% of whose graduates are women], and a lot of the same issues women in other fields face are prevalent in this field as well. Women who work in male-dominated fields can feel isolated. You don’t necessarily think about changing the larger structure of bias. It’s more survival mode. How can you get through it?”

The 2018 WIC gathering drew 340 women at all career levels from 120 conservation organizations throughout the country. Sessions included active listening and developing empathy as a leader, among others.

The Alliance’s government relations director, Lori Faeth, speaks highly of her conference experience. “There were a couple of sessions that really stuck with me. One was the ‘Women of Power Panel,’ where four women from very different backgrounds shared their stories on how they moved up through the conservation world into leadership positions. Each shared some of the challenges they faced along the way and discussed steps they took to overcome them. I thought it was a great dialogue, with lessons for all women who want to move up in the community.”

The summit will take place again in 2020, and an online community where women can reach out to discuss issues is in development. “There’s a whole network out there just waiting to be built of women in this field,” says Lillard. “There’s a lot of knowledge and support available — we just have to harness it.”

How else can women both equip themselves with the appropriate tools to deal with these issues, and equip male coworkers to be more effective allies?

Katie Chang knows that data can empower people. “It was very moving for me to hear how people are using the salary and benefits survey information in their personal interactions or in negotiating their salaries. I would love to see more organizations take this on. It’s not just about individuals advocating for themselves, which is important, but how do we move this to organizational change?”

Companies need to approach gender inequality as they would any business problem: with hard data, posits Harvard Business Review. “Most programs created to combat gender inequality are based on anecdotal evidence or cursory surveys. But to tailor a solution to a company’s specific problems, you need to seek data to answer fundamental questions, such as ‘When are women dropping out?’ and ‘Are women acting differently than men in the office?’ and ‘What about our company culture has limited women’s growth?’ When organizations implement a solution, they need to measure the outcomes of both behavior and advancement in the office. Only then can they transition from the debate about the causes of gender inequality (bias versus behavior) and advance to the needed stage of a solution.”

It’s going to take a concerted effort from all levels of staff, board members and our community as a whole, points out Cupka. “I’m not saying to reward women without merit — I think if there’s more representation by women in every part of the organization, then women will be treated more fairly.”

Look for a series of blogs related to this article in September 2018.

Speaking Out for Change

When an email request was sent out to land trusts asking for experiences of gender bias for this article, we received many responses. These quotes are presented without attribution at the request of contributors.

• “When I was going through a divorce, board members suggested I stop working in order to ‘save my marriage.’ Would they say that to a man? After the divorce, a board member and a past board member, independent of each other, suggested I find a ‘real’ job to support my kids instead of asking themselves why they don’t pay a decent salary and offer benefits.”
• “In my first year working for a land trust, at the age of 25, I received a series of explicit photos from one of my landowners, a man who was probably 60 or 70. That was sexual harassment, but I never reported it, just deleted the email and continued to work with this man who owned some fantastic farmland. It wasn’t worth derailing the deal. I just made sure to not be alone with him.”
• “I was attending our state land trust conference a few years ago and meeting with a male colleague for the first time. I made a comment about how great it was to see so many women in the land conservation field. He stated point blank: ‘It’s because you get paid less.’”
• “When my organization was searching for my replacement, I actually heard someone say about the lead candidate: ‘Her husband does well financially, so we wouldn’t have to pay her as much.’”
• “I was at a local service club luncheon to be awarded a grant for an education program. An older male member leaned across me and said to my boss, ‘You hire them like we do—young and pretty!’”
• “Many of our landowners have single sons, and before I was married, I suffered through being asked out on numerous occasions. I had to figure out how to decline graciously so as not to kill a good project.”
• “I have nearly 24 years in the conservation field. I have had inappropriate comments made to me by volunteer leaders of other nonprofits, been asked out in front of my intern during work hours by a wildlife agency employee and been treated like ‘the dumb girl’ countless times.”

Photo Information

• Dianne Russell of the Institute for Conservation Leadership co-presented a gender bias workshop at Rally 2017 and will co-present a longer version at this year’s Rally./Photo by Jennifer Green Photography
• The Alliance’s salary survey spurred Carol Abrahamzon to request a pay increase at her land trust./Photo by Ashlynn Francis Photography
• Meagan Cupka and David Perry, executive director of Blue Ridge Land Conservancy, have discussed such issues as the male-female composition of the board and the salary disparity data that the Land Trust Alliance salary survey revealed.

Elisabeth Ptak, a freelance writer and editor in California, formerly worked for Marin Agricultural Land Trust (accredited) for 15 years.