Called out gender bias and worried.

[IBSworriescanitbe]

There are six ppl at around the same level at my work and three have been approached about taking on extra responsibilites, the type that puts them in good stead for when more senior roles come up. We are all middle managers.
It just so happens the three asked are all male and three not asked are female. In fact one of the men asked has less experience than me and and one of the females, she is actually his line manager.
I feel miffed. My work has a problem with gender bias and non of the senior team are women. As a nationwide company, like many, they are always apparently looking at ways to close the gender gap haha.
I have put in an official complaint, but now I am worried if I have done the right thing. I am worried as it is such a boys club at the top and it might look like sour grapes from me :(

You can't uncomplain. I mean,you could withdraw it, but they'll still know you did it, and if there's that much of an old boys network, you'll be stuffed whatever. But hopefully, it will rattle them enough to look at how they handle diversity and unconscious bias and so on. Either way, it's done, so you have to go with it.

So I would be prepared to give examples of potential discrimination - like the men being asked - and what measures could be taken to counteract it.

Do you have a women's network? Mentoring programme? Has your company done any diversity or unconscious bias training? Do they have any recruitment policies like "blind" CVs?

I refused to go for an interview with one company who had one token woman on the board and their senior management. I don't suppose any of them cared, but at least I raised it as a problem.

Stay strong. It's tiring.