Closing the Gap: Eight Conversations to Unlearn Workplace Gender Bias
You're already having these conversations.
Here's the structure to make them count.
Eight facilitator-ready discussion sessions for teams that are done pretending the problem is somewhere else.
Get Closing the Gap — $197Instant digital download · Expensable under L&D or DEI budgets
The problem
You've been the unofficial expert for years. Without a framework, without documentation, without it being in your job description.
You already know what's happening in your organization. You've named it in one-on-ones, debriefed it in parking-lot conversations after meetings, and drafted the Slack message you decided not to send.
Most organizations don't have a structured way to discuss gender bias. Not really. They have mandatory e-learning from 2019 and a DEI statement on the careers page. What they don't have is a room where people can sit with honest questions, hear each other's experiences, and agree on something they'll actually change.
Women in senior leadership are significantly more likely than men to be interrupted, have their judgment questioned, and have their work attributed to others — yet most of their male colleagues report not noticing these patterns at all.
McKinsey Women in the Workplace, 2024The problem isn't that people in your organization are bad. It's that nobody has created the conditions for them to see what you see. That is a structural problem. Structural problems don't get fixed by sending a link to an article.
What this is not
Not a training. Not a consultant. Not another awareness exercise.
Before you go further, a few things this guide is not:
- A training program that requires outside facilitation or HR sign-off
- A DEI audit that produces a report nobody reads
- A one-and-done workshop checkbox
- An ideological exercise that will get flagged in the current organizational climate
- More awareness without any mechanism for accountability
What it is: Eight stand-alone discussion sessions that any team member can facilitate. Structured enough to produce real conversation. Practical enough to run in existing team meetings, leadership offsites, or ERG programming — without a budget line beyond the guide itself.
What's inside
Eight sessions. Each one stand-alone.
Run one at a leadership offsite. Use all eight across a quarter. Hand it to your ERG lead and step back. Each session runs 60–90 minutes with clear objectives, timed prompts, and activity guides.
Gender-Focused Icebreaker
Participants share personal stories about when they first became aware of gender expectations and constraints. Creates a trusting atmosphere and surfaces how deeply gender norms shape identity — before the harder conversations begin. 30 minutes.
Vote with Your Feet
A values-clarification exercise: participants physically move to "agree" or "disagree" on statements about gender roles and workplace dynamics. Surfaces hidden assumptions and creates a shared baseline — fast. 45 minutes.
What Is Bias?
Defines unconscious bias and examines how microaggressions and everyday sexism accumulate over time. Includes a short TED Talk followed by structured reflection. Moves the group from vague awareness to shared vocabulary. 75 minutes.
Gender Bias in the Workplace
Examines four specific bias patterns women face at work: Prove It Again, Tightrope, Maternal Wall, and Tug of War. Draws on real data and personal experience. The session that makes abstract patterns suddenly recognizable. 100 minutes.
Privilege for Sale
An experiential exercise on workplace privilege — who has it, who doesn't, and what it costs when it's invisible. Connects individual experience to systemic advantage. One of the sessions that lingers longest after the room clears. 60 minutes.
Power Walk
Participants take on character profiles and move through statements about workplace opportunity, safety, and belonging — revealing how intersecting identities shape advancement. Concrete, embodied, hard to forget. 45 minutes.
Power and Gender in Our Workplace — Ideal vs. Real
Teams map the gap between stated organizational values and lived experience — what the org says it does, and what actually happens. Uses sticky notes and facilitated discussion to name norms the team wants to keep, change, or create. 60–75 minutes.
From Insight to Action: Interrupting Bias & Building Accountability
Translates everything prior into practice. Teams rehearse in-the-moment responses to bias, identify their specific "bias hotspots," and build a concrete accountability plan with named owners, timelines, and indicators. The session where something actually changes. 75 minutes.
Who it's for
Be honest with yourself before you buy.
This is for you if —
- You're the senior woman who's been unofficially running these conversations for years and wants something to point to
- You lead an ERG and need a structured curriculum, not a pile of articles and good intentions
- You're a manager — women or men — who knows something is off and wants a process for naming it
- Your DEI programming has been scaled back and you're looking for something that works in the current environment
- You want to be the person who did something, not just the person who noticed
This is not for you if —
- You want a training checkbox — one session, done, forgotten by Friday
- Your team isn't willing to sit with what they find
- You're looking for someone to tell you the answers from outside
- The word "accountability" in a discussion guide feels threatening rather than useful
About the author
Myra Betron
I've spent 20 years translating gender data into organizational action — from clinical interventions in Nigeria to gender portfolio development across 38 countries. I built Jhpiego's gender program from one specialist and a $200K budget into 42 projects, $28M in funding, and 35 staff. My 2025 BMJ Global Health trial on gender-based violence prevention showed approximately a 50% reduction in IPV risk. That's the evidence base behind this guide.
Closing the Gap is built on the same conviction that runs through all of my work: gender inequality is a system problem, not a personal problem. The conversations that change organizations are the ones that name the system — not the ones that ask individuals to quietly adapt to it.
The offer
Closing the Gap
Eight Conversations to Unlearn Workplace Gender Bias
One-time purchase · Instant digital download
- Eight facilitator-ready discussion sessions
- Timed prompts, activity guides, facilitation notes
- Closing action-planning framework
- Fully stand-alone — run any session independently
- Expensable under L&D, DEI, or team development budgets
Questions
Frequently asked
Does this require a trained facilitator?
No. Each session is designed to be run by any team member. The facilitation guide includes step-by-step instructions for someone who has never led a structured discussion before.
Can we run individual sessions, or do we need all eight?
Each session is fully stand-alone. Run one at a leadership offsite and call it complete. Build a quarterly curriculum with all eight. It's modular by design — use what your team needs when your team needs it.
Is this appropriate for mixed teams, or only for women?
Designed for mixed teams. The research on gender bias change is consistent: conversations that include men are more likely to produce lasting change than those that don't. Facilitation notes address this directly.
Our organization is currently pulling back from DEI programming. Will this work?
This guide doesn't use DEI framing — it uses structured peer-led conversation. It doesn't require a DEI mandate to run, and it isn't framed as diversity training. It's designed to work in the current organizational environment.
We're a small team. Is this appropriate?
Yes. The guide works for a team of six or a division of sixty. Facilitation notes scale accordingly.
Can I share this across my whole organization?
The $197 license covers a single team or ERG. For organization-wide licensing, write me at info@powherdata.com and we'll sort it out.
Eight conversations. Structure that holds. A framework that doesn't require you to be the hero.
If now isn't the right time, that's a real answer. If it is — the guide is waiting.
Get Closing the Gap — $197