Equal Consideration Standard

A gender bias audit for organizations

The Standard asks nine questions of any decision

Every rule was designed with someone specific in mind. The Standard asks who was forgotten.

The Equal Consideration Standard is the practical standard of Womafreesm for designing and auditing decisions that affect women’s lives. It puts nine questions to a law, an algorithm, a protocol, a product or a program and finds where a woman’s life is missing. An organization is checked on four layers; the result goes into the open registry with date and scope. Organizations can register interest in a free implementation pilot now.

The Standard rests on the principle of Equal Consideration.

Here, a decision means any rule that decides something for a woman: a law, a hiring algorithm, a medical protocol, a product, a labor model or a public program. Each question has to have an answer, and the answer has to be shown, and the answers must be backed by documents, data and the results of the check.

Data

Which groups of women are included in the data the decision relies on.

Life stages

Which stages of the female life cycle are accounted for in its design.

Risks

Which risks and consequences of the decision for women were measured.

Testing

On which body, profile and life scenario the decision has been tested.

Exclusions

Which women the system wrongly classifies, underestimates or excludes.

Correction

Which mechanisms for correction are built in before any damage occurs.

Contesting

How a woman can contest a decision that has been made about her life.

Publication

Where the methodology, limits and results of the check are published.

Responsibility

Who is responsible for correcting an identified failure of the system.

Take a company’s rule for choosing whom to promote. Question 2 asks which stages of the female life cycle it accounts for. If the rule was written for a career without breaks, it leaves out a woman coming back from a care break, and the check records that as an Unconsidered Point.

A decision with no answer to a question contains an Unconsidered Point. Unconsidered Point: a point in a woman’s life cycle where the system did not see her when it designed the rule. The Standard finds such points before they turn into harm.

The principle of Equal Consideration

Who the Standard is for

Companies, public bodies, funders, universities, AI teams, healthcare providers and legal institutions: any organization whose decisions affect women’s lives and that is ready to back its results with documents and data.

Discuss research funding

Implementation pilots: free of charge

Before the first edition is released, the Standard is tested on real organizations: in AI, healthcare, the labor market, the care economy, corporate policy and funding programs.

Taking part is free. A pilot does not confer a level: a level is awarded only through attestation. Organizations can register interest now.

What you receive

The Womafreesm team reviews one of your decisions against the Standard: nine questions and four layers. You will see where the decision accounts for women’s lives, where it has Unconsidered Points and which evidence is missing.

What you contribute

One real decision to review (for example, a promotion rule, a hiring algorithm or a medical protocol), the documents and data behind it, time from the people responsible for it and feedback on how the Standard works in practice.

The result of the review goes only to you, and a pilot puts nothing in the open registry. Your participation stays private until you agree in writing to be named. Womafreesm will publish a summary report on the pilots without naming organizations.

What an organization receives from attestation

A clear view of where the organization’s decisions account for women’s lives and where they do not, and a level in the open registry.

The check shows which requirements of the Standard the organization already meets, where gaps were found and which evidence is still missing. That helps decide which processes to improve and how to prove the results of the changes.

When a level is awarded, the open registry states the date, the processes checked and the result: a record of what exactly was checked, when and with what outcome, not a verdict that “the organization is good”. Substantial new information can be grounds for a repeat check and a review of the status under the rules of attestation.

Ten instruments, each with one job

Applying the Standard produces five parts: a diagnosis, an impact assessment, a risk map, recommendations and a change plan. They are assembled from ten instruments, listed below.

Diagnostic checklist

Which stages of a woman’s life the decision skipped.

Data requirement

Which data must exist before a rule or product goes live.

Life-cycle impact assessment

The effect of a decision on each stage of a woman’s life.

Care load lens

Whether the decision counts child care, elder care, unpaid work at home and family responsibilities.

Health lens

Whether the decision accounts for the female body, pain, hormonal stages, menopause and age.

Age relevance lens

Whether the system scores women 45 and older lower, or leaves them out.

AI bias protocol

How an AI system treats women differently by age, gender and life stage.

Workplace blueprint

Hiring and HR, keeping women on staff, leadership paths, returning after a career break, flexible work.

Policy Brief template

A short document with legal and institutional recommendations for the people who write laws and rules.

Public accountability note

What was checked, what was changed, what remains a risk, what will be monitored.

Four areas of the check: data, the design of the decision, consequences and responsibility

An organization is assessed on four layers. For each layer it submits evidence: documents, data and measured results.

Layer	What is examined
Data	What data the decision is based on, and which women are missing from it
Decision design	Which life-cycle stages, risks and scenarios were built in at the design stage
Consequences	The measured effect of the decision on women of different ages and circumstances
Accountability	Who is responsible for the fix, how a woman contests a decision, what is published

Five levels, each assigned after a check

Each level, from 1 to 5, is assigned by the assessing body at the end of the procedure.

Level	Name	What it means
1	Awareness	The organization recognizes the problem and completes a self-assessment
2	Diagnostic	The organization assesses its own decisions against the Standard
3	Pilot	The Standard is applied in one process: HR, AI, healthcare, public policy, marketing, funding or legal drafting
4	Institutional adoption	The Standard is built into the organization’s internal rules and applied in its work: in processes, procurement, audits, reporting or governance
5	Public accountability	The organization publishes what it changed and which indicators it monitors

A check can also end in a refusal. A level that is awarded is entered in the open registry with the date and the scope of the check; how long it is valid and how re-attestation works are published with the rules of attestation.

How attestation works

An organization applies, the assessing body examines the evidence, and the result is published in the registry.

The rules of attestation are the same for everyone, and the check, the consulting and the WLCE Index are kept apart.

Whoever checks does not consult

The level is awarded by the assessing body. Help with fixing what was found comes from external consultants trained in the method; they work outside the assessing body and Womafreesm, and only training earns a place in their registry.

The Index and attestation are separate

The Index measures countries and systems from research data. Attestation checks one organization within the process it declared, for example hiring or promotion. These are two different results, and each of them is read separately.

The rules of the assessing body, appeals and withdrawal of a status are adopted before the first attestation and recorded in the Index Results Register.

FAQ

1. What is the Equal Consideration Standard?

The Equal Consideration Standard is Womafreesm’s practical standard for designing and auditing decisions that affect women’s lives. It checks which women are in the data, which stages of life are accounted for, which risks are measured, how the decision was tested, how it is corrected and contested, what is published and who is responsible. Its first edition will follow the pilot of the Women’s Life-Cycle Economy Index (WLCE Index).

2. How does an organization obtain a status?