I started the day thinking all was as it should be. And then I read the following tweet: RT @HarvardBiz: Women on Boards: America Is Falling Behind. If America is falling behind, Australia, our magnificent country, full of amazing women, is in the dark ages.
When I left university twenty years ago, to enter the male dominated world of investment banking, I was aware of the issue that women weren’t represented on the boards of Australian companies. However, like so many of my female peers, we simply thought the issue would disappear. We were told by our mothers and our fathers, our teachers and our professors that we could do anything. Be anyone. I now recognise this for what it was: naivete in the extreme. Twenty years later Australia has one of the poorest rates of female representation in the boardroom in the world.
What happened to gender diversity? What happened when a generation of highly educated Australian women entered the workforce? SILENCE. You are not hearing the sound of the glass ceiling shattering above the boardroom table. 84 boards in the ASX 200 still don’t have ANY female representation. That’s right ANY.
I know we have a female Governor General. And yes we have a female Prime Minister. And a female Premier. For this I am thrilled and delighted to be able to say to my daughters ‘that could be you’. But shamefully I can’t say this about reaching the highest levels of Australian business. Females simply don’t have the representation in the boardroom that we should and that is a problem for all Australians. And not just because the evidence shows that companies with a gender diverse board outperform. If we don’t have gender diversity on our companies boards then we don’t have gender diversity. Period.
It’s a disgrace of national proportions. Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia have greater female representation in the boardroom, to put it into global perspective. Call me impassioned on the issue but having watched the male status quo for the last twenty years I say “enough”! If your employer has an all male board, but the employee handbook says that they don’t tolerate discrimination based on gender, then it is a blatant case of do as I say, not as I do.
You may not even especially care about this issue but if females are not well represented at the top of business then discrimination and gender bias, at all levels, is real. And that is bad news for all women. What does it say to our young women? What does it say to the world? Australian women just can’t cut it at the top? This is of course laughable, so what the heck is going on?
There has been some progress, albeit of minuscule proportions. There are amazing women who have been fighting the good fight on this issue for a long time. Women on Boards are just one of the terrific organisations agitating for change. There are also fabulous women currently sitting on Australian boards who make us all proud. Catherine Brenner, Carolyn Kay & Jasmin Allen are just a few of women who should be, in my opinion, household names for their wonderful representation of women on our Top 100 company boards. Make no mistake these women are the best and the brightest and far from the “token” female on the boards on which they sit. But we need more of them at the top. Many more.
There has been much discussion on the pros and cons of quotas. I for one support them and look to the stellar results Norway’s implementation has achieved as evidence that they do work. I don’t buy the argument that quotas lead to the wrong outcomes. There are plenty of talented women to choose from. I agree it should be the right person for the job. But all too often it is simply the right man for the job. Australia claims to be a country that does not discriminate based on gender. OK then. We want equal representation on the boards of our Australian companies and we want it now. No more excuses.
Have we done enough? Do quotas work and should they be enforced to ensure the gender gap closes?
You can read the original article that was tweeted by The Harvard Business Review here http://s.hbr.org/k7azLD
Top Comments
This not my original thought - but is worth repeating: If you look around you – wars, poverty, pollution, rape including corrective rape (?), child porn, the GFC, just to name a few of the problems plaguing our world – it has to make you wonder if women were in charge, would the world be so besieged by the seemingly hopeless state of affairs. Bravo to that those at the IMF are looking to replace the predator with a woman. (I too have worked in a man's world for over 20 years - and I have some stories to tell.)
Thanks - nothing like a "females are superior" generalist and sexist viewpoint to add weight to an argument. What a joke to suggest that there would not be issues such as those you raised if women were at the helm over time. What, we would be living in a eutopian word like we see on those 'Pure Blonde' beer ads would we? Like women never make mistakes or commit crimes or anything.
This is as ridiculous a statement as it would be to suggest that if women were in charge through history, all we would have invented would have been hair straighteners, control garments and botox.
OMG, unbelievable.
I cant believe the hipocrisy of feminists.
Wow, what a comment, I vote we lads all get out and have a Dude walk against what RocknBabyBoomer has said. We can all wear speedos and hold fake guns and demand not to be seen as the enemy all the time, ask that feminists keep some perspective and loose their self rightous 'all women are victims, all men are bastards' attitude - will be cool.
Problem is our maternal clock and nuturing natures....we want babies, we want to care for them....and its too hard to be a fabulous mother plus a successful high-flying career woman - so we settle for having a bit of a career and being a fairly good mother.....its not true that women can have it all. And show me a woman who manages to squash the desire to be a mum and its likely she'll be a Julia Guillard....unless you can get yourself a great stay-at-home dad - but then how can we respect that kind of a man?? Its so complicated!!!
How can you respect the kind of man who wants to be a stay at home dad? Gee I have no idea, possibly in the same way you would respect a woman who had the same desire.
And who says that Julia Gillard ever had that desire?
I think the point that was being made was that many women find drive and ambition in a man to be very attractive qualities in the mateship game (much less so in how men are attracted to women), and would bork at a man that states a driving desire to want to stay home and raise kids over and above a career. I am sure many on this site will scoff at this notion, but ladies, be true to yourself, how would have you assessed a man that stated a burning desire (in the pre child courtship phase of your lives) to stay home with the kids.
Obviously I am speaking in generalities, however generalities are based on a majority truth in my experience. To then expect that same man that attracted you in the first place to suddenly shelve ambition and career drive to undertake the majority of child raising is wishful thinking. This is about as likely as women who want to stay home in the early child raising years being told that they shouldnt because career should be considered more important. It just wont happen.
This is not to take anything away from anyone that strives for anything they want in personal or professional life, nor to take anything away from couples that reach a point where it works better for them for the man to stay at home while the women goes to work. We do however have to realise that there is a significant pre programmed orientation in each gender that defines much of what transpires in the world.
This is the problem with the feminist movement IMO, they just can not accept these very real differences, but rather push the line that there is some dark, pre meditated men scheming to make the world difficult for women (throwing around terms like misogynist and patriach in the process).
While men are men, women are women, and we both have different factors that drive us, there will be different end outcomes in some areas of society. This will probably always traspose into a greater proportion of women staying home and interupting their careers when kids coming along, and a grater proportion of men being driven to push ahead with career uninterupted.
Why do women feel they have to fill boardrooms in equal numbers to men in order to have achieved what they want in life? Agendas like those pressed by the author of this blog seem to be a regular line pushed onto us by a narrow band of feminists that see just one very narrow aspect of what defines a successful and happy life, for both genders.
I agree so much with the comments above! As a career driven women before I had my first child... how that's all changed now and not so much because I don't want to have a great career, but society still doesn't really allow us to be fleixible (job share, flexibility etc etc) at higher levels. And in my opinion they are missing out on such amazing talent because of it!!
If you look around you - wars, poverty, pollution, rape including corrective rape (?), child porn, the GFC, just to name a few of the problems plaguing our world - it has to make you wonder if women were in charge, would the world be so besieged by the seemingly hopeless state of affairs. Bravo that those at the IMF are looking to replace the predator with a woman.