It’s 2025 and we would hope that many of the hard-won battles for women, globally, might be gaining ground. Yet, from the East to the West, we see countless examples of their capacity to thrive stymied by sexism, bigotry and systemic bias.
We see this in the underrepresentation of women in leadership, the misrepresentation of women in media, and the demonised tropes of women in popular culture, particularly when it comes to women of colour (WOC) – think the angry Black woman, the subservient Asian woman, or the oppressed Muslim woman.
In 2025, the worth of women is, unfortunately, still up for debate in many facets of society, with even the most successful of women forced to question their value.
The worth of women in media and popular culture
At this year’s Golden Globes ceremony, both Demi Moore and Viola Davis gave impassioned speeches that became powerful salutes to women’s agency and identity in a cutthroat field. Their speeches shined a light on the impact of beauty and success standards for women, and how this affected their self-worth and careers.
For WOC, in particular, who remain consistently overlooked and underpaid for their worth, standing out in order to succeed and receive the recognition they deserve, is an exception to the norm.
The Australian Financial Review recently promoted a vanilla-washed CEO interview series in the name of gender equity, of white women who were capable of ‘doing it all’ (a troubling aspiration in itself). Once again, we had a nationwide publication suggesting that diversity stops with gender. These articles and white-washing ‘progress’ fall short of recognising why intersectional representation matters.
Imagine if instead of this analysis, the AFR had platformed a more intersectional representation of women in this cohort. Imagine the inclusive breadth of what talented leaders can look like, challenging biases, upending conservative ideas, and inviting new thinking. Instead, we are served a myopic lens of an all-white female executive bingo card. In 2025. This simply reinforces the corporate status quo that fails to address ‘who is excluded from this count, and why?’. After all, a piece about ‘doing it all ‘ when you stand out from the rest, would make a more worthwhile read.
The worth of women in the workplace
According to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, we could add $128 billion to the economy by boosting women’s workforce participation and productivity growth if we tackle the factors holding women back. If we drill deeper, as per the AFR critique, we find that women of colour’s experience of being undervalued in the workforce situates them at greater risk of exploitation. Per capita, the extent to which these women are overworked, underpaid and under-promoted is a grim indictment on workplaces flexing about gender equity being tackled (look at their shiny websites), when this approach is not intersectional in application.
Whilst culturally diverse women in executive roles absolutely exist, their numbers remain disproportionately low compared to the opportunities available to them. Research from Women of Colour Australia (WoCA) highlights a persistent gender bias in corporate leadership, with women, especially WOC, woefully underrepresented.
Leadership models have historically reinforced white masculine norms, complicating the recognition and promotion of diverse leadership styles. If proximity to appearing and mimicking behaviour of white colleagues is what gets WOC ahead, how is diversity being valued?
The idea that your worth is tied to how good you make your workplace look by helping them meet a certain target, rather than how much your workplace values you, is where we can point to an obvious red flag. Despite some gender equity initiatives, WoCA’s recent report has shown that workplace discrimination is rising with a staggering 10% increase since 2021. Of note, 68.4% of respondents cited experiencing discrimination at work, with 93.8% of these claims attributed to racism.
The same report found 6 in 7 felt excluded in decision-making processes, 4 in 5 were not listened to and, 5 in 7 felt shortchanged in opportunities at work. How do these stats speak to WOC’s worth being respected? This is the toxic aftermath of performative measures.
To go one step further, WOC are increasingly being thrown off what’s referred to as the ‘glass cliff’. This is when women and racial or ethnic minorities are appointed to leadership positions during times of crisis and set up to take the blame if the company fails, all while the organisation itself gets a boost to its reputation for “platforming” a diverse leader. The worth of women, particularly those of colour, is still all too often defined by perception over skills and substance.
Whether it is setting up women to fail in the workplace or silencing their voices in the media, in 2025, we are far from treating women in a way that values them respectfully. This reality is amplified for WOC. We need to stop romanticising their resilience and instead call out the barriers designed to impede their success. When WOC excel as leaders, they are not exceptions to their community – they are the products of them.
As CEO of The Culture Lens, Tasneem Chopra OAM highlights issues of equity and belonging through an intersectional lens within leadership of government, corporate, arts and community sectors. She assists clients in communicating, working with and leading across different cultures for greater impact, dissecting the breadth of inclusion. Tasneem has developed diversity, equity and inclusion policies, managed projects, curated exhibitions, and facilitated leadership programs and engagement strategies for a breadth of clients for two decades. For her efforts she was appointed the inaugural Ambassador for Women of Colour, Australia was an Anti-Racism Champion for the Australian Human Rights Commission and received an OAM.