A few of you have asked what I said at my talk earlier in the week. Here are some of the themes.
Women make up 60% of all graduates in Europe and the US this year. In January 2010, for the first time, there were more women in employment in the US than men. Women have become the majority of the workforce. Yet, only 12% of FTSE 100 directorships are held by women. This is clearly not because there are no women working that can rise to be leaders or because women are not bright enough to do the job. Britain also just became 74th in the world in terms of the percentage of female MP’s, behind countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and recently overtaken by Nicaragua, the Philippines and Uzbekistan.
Why is this? We know a lot about the barriers to women progressing which exist within organizations. Women still bear the burden of childcare so can work fewer hours if they have to pick up children from school, etc. A lot of opportunities go to people who can schmooze in the evenings and, as many women are essentially doing a second shift when they get home, they cannot attend these events. Women ‘step out’ of work to undertake the social service of producing more consumers yet are penalized for this unpaid service when they get back to work. Work is set up for an old fashioned male paradigm when the workers and professionals were supported at home by unpaid help, (women) so they could work all the hours possible and get ahead. And women were (perhaps) happy to be at home looking after children, when the mans wage covered all the costs. This does not match the reality of our countries aspirations today.
There are also internal barriers to women excelling as leaders. Women tend not to celebrate their successes in quite the same way as men do. One client of mine expressed her dismay as her male colleagues went running to the boss to crow about what they had achieved on a shared project as she just got on with the work. Of course, those men then got promoted as they were noticed, whilst she did not. Women are not as canny about what it takes to get on in a masculine corporate culture, nor do they want to do what it takes when it conflicts with their values. Women wait to be invited to run for public office for example, according to Marie Wilsons research at the White House Project.
One of the most telling pieces of research that the White House Project did was on perceived leadership characteristics. They sat a test group in front of small screens with a dial, and showed them clips of men and women speaking. The test group were asked to dial up when the speaker displayed leadership characteristics and dial down when they displayed characteristics that were not associated with leadership. When the women came on screen people dialed down. Our very concept of the term ‘leader’ is masculine. We do not internally regard women as leaders so we have a great deal of work to do to meet the masculine ideal. This is why a lot of women’s leadership programmes are about training women to be more like men.
As far as politics goes, women largely don’t want to get involved because of the way that female MP’s are treated. Remember Jacqui Smiths cleavage being of more interest to the media than her words as the new Home Sec? That kind of reporting is pathetic and childish, frustrating and nearly impossible to relate to. Also, generally speaking, women do not profess an interest in politics per se but will express an interest in issues, such as education, health and community relations. These things are the domain of politics but your average woman in the street does not see herself as having much to say about ‘politics’ because it has become synonymous with economics and defense. Topics that traditionally men think of when they relate to politics. Of course, that is why we need both genders in politics, attending to both groups of issues.
Of course, this is not a crime that has been perpetrated on women. Far from it. We have been complicit in this set of arrangements. We have accepted the status quo, we have left work in our droves when it got too hard. We have not led in a way that made a difference to our culture. It’s time to do so. We need to step up and bring our voices to the table, for the sake of the women coming along behind us and for the children of the nation. We need to put ourselves forward for public office, stand an MP’s run for local council, as that is the only way that we will reach the tipping point necessary for the culture to change to something more female friendly. Nobody is going to do this for us, we need to do it ourselves.
(This last bit of my talk wasn’t so popular…)
