Deshnee Naidoo has spent her career climbing the mining ladder and feels the change in mindset towards women has been “phenomenal”.
But recently, the former boss of Vale Base Metals, a nickel and cobalt producer, has noticed a worrying reaction. When candidates from diverse backgrounds secure jobs, some men in the industry have taken to using the acronym DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — in a derogatory reframing: “They didn’t earn it.”
“I hear more voices against the awakening. The jury is still out on whether it will grow,” says Naidoo, 48. “We’re always being pushed back to the way things were, rather than where they need to be.”
Naidoo’s experience highlights how transatlantic opposition to diversity initiatives – in which senior Conservatives have criticized schemes such as bias training or targeting under-represented groups in recruitment – threatens efforts to reduce gender inequality. In the mining industry, one of the sectors most lagging behind in terms of gender equality, the risk of reversing hard-won gains is particularly high.
“Globally, we’re seeing this Andrew Tate effect of men taking back power,” says Stacy Hope, chief executive of advocacy group Women in Mining UK, referring to the so-called “misogynistic” social media influencer. “We need to take the men on the journey to make sure they become allies.
The belief that women are promoted based on gender rather than ability has permeated middle management and boards, according to some female leaders. Naidoo says she was accused of being “too aggressive and pushy”. “At the executive level, despite the champions we have . . . we just look so far from what we should look like,” he adds. “The industry still looks like yesterday’s peak.”
Mining has made significant progress in gender equality over the last decade. The number of female CEOs of the 500 largest mining companies jumped from 4.9 percent in 2012 to about 18 percent in 2022, according to law firm White & Case.
One of the most prominent female executives in mining is Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, the owner of an iron ore empire who introduced pink mining trucks to raise awareness of breast cancer.
But the industry is far from parity. According to White & Case data from 2022, of the top 100 mining groups, 16 still had no women on their boards, and one in four of the largest 500 companies had none. The variety of “junior” mining companies that explore and develop mines and make up the majority of the industry is still pathetic.
The battle to recruit women comes as the mining sector – crucial to producing raw materials for the international clean energy transition – struggles to attract the most talented workers. Young people, executives say, are increasingly interested in becoming data engineers rather than miners.
A survey of mining industry leaders by consulting firm McKinsey found that 71 percent said a lack of talent is holding them back from meeting production and strategic goals. Another PwC survey found that two-thirds of leaders expected skills shortages to have a major impact on profitability over the next 10 years.
A particular challenge of the mining industry is location: mines are often in remote locations around the world. The rural communities in which they are located sometimes have different norms than Western societies, putting female workers at risk of gender-based violence or local resistance.
To align with the interests of a new generation, the industry hopes to position itself more and more as a technology- and data-driven business that doesn’t necessarily involve mudding in pits or going deep underground.
“I hate it when people talk about our industry as heavy industry,” says Hilde Merete Aasheim, who last month ended her five-year term as CEO of Norsk Hydro, Europe’s largest aluminum producer. “That’s an old word, it’s not about raw muscle anymore. It’s really cutting edge technology.”
Hope says the perception of mining as a “boys club” has done it no favors in attracting women. The industry must become “visible” to young people, she said, including as an industry necessary to meet environmental targets such as cutting emissions to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“We need young people innovating with AI and digital toolkits,” he says. “We’re not doing a good job of making it an industry that needs young people and diverse talent to drive that change.”
Managerial scandals did not help this reputation. A 2022 workplace culture report at British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto found bullying and sexism were “systemic” in its workplaces, which its chief executive Jakob Stausholm described as “deeply concerning”. Rio has now tied executive pay in part to gender diversity performance and will publish the results of another review this year.
Elizabeth Broderick, Australia’s former sex discrimination commissioner who led the Rio report, says discrimination incidents in mining were “not isolated workplace complaints” but “symptoms of a tolerant culture”.
However, the situation in the industry is improving in some ways. A new amendment to Australia’s gender discrimination law is a “game changer” in that it makes employers responsible not just for responding to complaints, but for taking preventative measures to create inclusive workplaces, Broderick says.
Norsk Hydro’s Aasheim is one woman who has benefited from supportive male leaders throughout her career, which began in a bakery as a teenager. “I never applied for a job,” she says. “But I was given a lot of opportunities because I had key leaders who saw my potential and challenged me to what I could do. . . As leaders, we have to be active.”
But in the face of backlash against DEI, some say executives need to take a more proactive approach to embedding support for women’s advancement across the workforce.
“We need to listen to men’s concerns about the changing demographics of the workforce and make sure their concerns are heard and addressed,” says Broderick. “Organizations that increase the representation of women work [not only] to change thinking and behaviour, but also to incorporate everyday respect into their systems and structures.”
More reporting by Nic Fildes