How a Remote Australian Mine Became a Gender-Balanced Workplace

While many industries have struggled to reach — and sustain — gender equality, progress has been particularly slow in mining and other traditionally male-dominated industries. While women comprise only 10% of workers at other large mines globally, South Flank, an iron ore mine in Western Australia operated by BHP, has created a workforce where 40% of the 869 frontline employees are women, and four out of six senior managers are women. The authors, whose research specializes in changing sexist and homophobic behaviors in traditionally male-dominated settings, were initially hired to deliver workshops on the subject at South Flank, but in their six weeks there, studied its workforce via observation and interviews. They identified five key factors that allowed the mine to achieve gender parity and inclusion of women workers: 1) Strong engagement from senior leaders who set strict gender equity targets, 2) strong support from leaders at the head office, 3) major investments in fostering a welcoming and safe mining camp, 4) use of science and data-driven approaches to drive change, and 5) recognition that gender equity is hard to achieve and sustain and requires ongoing work. They also outline potential obstacles to sustaining future progress, such as deeply rooted masculine norms that harm the well-being and retention of women workers and the lack of systems to support parents of all genders who hope to return to mining.