Quotas for Women on Boards? Yes Please!

I have just listened to a debate on BBC radio 4′s Today programme about women on boards and quotas following Cameron’s assertion that more women would be good for economic recovery.

I am in favour of quotas. I don’t agree with Karima Serageldin of Ariadne Capital who said on the programme it’s tokenism and things don’t change. Sometimes you have to force people who have the power, who are in charge and have always been in charge, to make a change. They have no real incentive to change (notwithstanding the fact that their is evidence that boards which feature a reasonable balance for women fare better, read this), when doing so means fewer places at the board table for them. Most incumbents will say it’s a good idea to have more women on boards but won’t actually do anything concrete about it. Or take measures that look good on paper but don’t actually cause a real change in numbers, i.e “Look, we’ve got a woman – now leave us alone!”

I do agree with Maggie Pagano, business editor at Independent newspapers who was also on the programme, who said men don’t feel patronised when they have (relatively) easy access to board seats so why should women (I’m paraphrasing her).

The UK government’s threat to bring in quotas wrought a tiny change when announced but complacency and vested interests continue to rule. We have always needed legislation to change unfair and unequal behaviour in society and we need it now.

What do you think?

And if this topic is of interest to you, do take a look at this interview with Dr Judith Baxter who has undertaken some research into women on boards.

Photo Credit: Carl Dwyer

Sexism has ended in Hollywood! Er….no

It was a great week end for media coverage of women in the newspapers. I particularly liked this article from Paul Harris in The Guardian newspaper, although others picked up on this story too. Here it is, edited down although the link will take you to the full story on line:

“Hollywood Women Unite to Break Through the Celluloid Ceiling

With female scriptwriters behind some of the biggest movies, from Juno to Kung Fu Panda 2, it seems the sexism barrier has been lifted. But has it?

Next week the Athena Film Festival will open at Barnard College in New York. The showcase, which commences on 9 February and is in its second year, is aimed at celebrating women film-makers and rewarding their art and successes. It will consist of screenings, awards and the usual parties, but with a feminist slant. Among those getting accolades will be a group of women in Hollywood known as “the Fempire“.

The Fempire consists of screenwriters Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, Liz Meriwether and Lorene Scafaria, who between them have worked on films that range from the quirky indie smash hit Juno to the big mainstream Hollywood comedy Couples Retreat. According to Melissa Silverstein, co-founder of the Athena festival, and the woman behind the acclaimed Women and Hollywood blog, the four women’s award will include the words: “For their creativity and their sisterhood.”

It is the word “sisterhood” that is key. The talent possessed by the women is not in doubt. It is their self-conscious decision openly to promote themselves in solidarity with other women that is different in a movie world dominated by men. It also goes against an enduring Hollywood myth: that women let into the Tinseltown boys’ club won’t help each other out. “There is a mythology that women can’t be friends with each other because they have to compete for jobs. We have to get beyond that,” said Silverstein.

The latest Celluloid Ceiling figures for the top 250 US films produced in 2011 have just been released. They make grim reading. Women made up only 5% of Hollywood directors last year, a drop from 7% in 2010. Even as far back as 1998 the figure was 7%.

“That is a kick in the gut,” said Silverstein. But elsewhere progress is hardly fast-track. In total, women made up 18% of behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood in 2011 – against 16% in 2010. But that, again, is only an increase of one percentage point over 1998. About 38% of films employed one or no women in the senior jobs that the survey studied.

Overwhelmingly, the pattern in Hollywood is not of progress towards greater female empowerment, but of stagnation or even retreat. In this context the huge amounts of publicity given to the work of women like Bigelow and Hardwicke seem like tokenism at best. “People tend to see them as evidence of creeping progress, that things get a little better each year, and so then we don’t need to think of it as a problem,” said Lauzen. “But in reality the numbers are stable. Surprisingly so. And the number of women directors is actually going down.”

But the decision of women in Hollywood to start forming their own networks raises the question of why Hollywood remains so gender-divided. Of course, it is not alone. Numerous commentators in Davos last week at the World Economic Forum have noted the lack of women present as the planet’s major woes are discussed. In fact, at Davos only 17% of delegates are women. Meanwhile, it has been pointed out that about 84% of guests and reporters on BBC Radio 4′s flagship Today programme are men. But at least in some of these areas progress is being made. In Davos the number of women attending, despite being so small, was at its highest yet – up from 9% in 2002.

Hooray for Hollywood?

Meanwhile Hollywood still stands out in its intransigence and – at the high-profile level of director – for going backwards. There is likely to be no easy solution. “I don’t think there is a magic bullet,” said Lauzen, citing Hollywood studio’s testosterone-fuelled corporate culture and it’s “clubbable” atmosphere.

Silverstein agrees: “It is a very small club and there are very few woman decision makers at the top level.”

Both Lauzen and Silverstein believe that true change in the film industry– which lags notably behind television – will mean getting women into more behind-the-scenes roles, especially powerful positions. Of course, that is precisely where the groups like the Fempire and Maven Films will come in. Women have to start projects and help other women along, gradually transforming the world behind the camera so their choices and tastes can eventually affect the world in front of it.

They also have to defeat the idea that women are only good at movies that women are believed likely to watch. After all, Bigelow’s Oscar-winner was a war film and the biggest female-directed hit last year was Kung Fu Panda 2, a family animation feature not aimed at a specific gender market.

Optimism

There are also a few signs of optimism elsewhere in the ecology of Hollywood. While the giant studios that produce and market most of the main Hollywood films are bastions of male dominance, especially the higher up you go, the media that reports on those behemoths is increasingly woman-led. In fact, many of the highest profile Hollywood journalists are women. Queen of the pile is the legendary Nikki Finke, founder and editor of the website Deadline Hollywood. Then there is Sharon Waxman, editor in chief of its rival website The Wrap. Meanwhile, Bonnie Fuller has started the gossip website Hollywood Life. But it’s not just online that women rule the roost. At the Hollywood Reporter – often considered the trade bible of the movie industry — the editorial director is Janice Min. This mini power-shift has itself led to the occasional sexist backlash.

But for now a lack of women in power in Hollywood is still hiding behind the success of a few big names. “You don’t see a lot of overt sexism. But you do see a lot of denial,” said Lauzen. ” End of article

So it’s not just our own dear BBC that is playing down women’s contributions. In fact, I see it everywhere. As an exercise I took a look through through my liberal type newspaper this morning. A good quarter of the paper is devoted to sport but there was not one woman’s sport featured, not even a hint. It was as if women don’t play sport at all… Fortunately this same newspaper managed to find space for some fashion shots of young under weight women wearing unwearable clothes (that’s a contradiction, I know but I’m on a roll here!)

Speak Up

I’ll say it again; wanting women to have a transparently fair opportunity is not about doing men down. It’s about trying to raise awareness of the issues and practices which are so long ingrained that most of us don’t even see it any more. My Speak Up course is emphatically not about putting men down; it’s about putting women up. We’ll be looking at some of the issues for ambitious women in the workplace and, together with the latest research, coming up with strategies which will work for individuals. We can’t change the whole of society but we can make a start!

Full details of the Speak Up one day course for women, at the gorgeous Royal Crescent Hotel are available by clicking here.

A Feminist Paradox?

There has been much debate recently about the BBC’s flagship radio news programme Today and whether it is sexist or not, ie very few women appear in it and it has 4 male presenters and only one woman.  As you might have guessed I’ve had a few words to say on the subject too (Do Women Need Role Models?) Questions have even been asked in parliament!

Libby Purvis, a respected and experienced broadcaster wrote about it in the Mail recently. By and large she doesn’t agree with the criticism (although I don’t agree totally with her it’s a good article, click link at end to read it). In brief she says that the Today programme represents the world as it is, more men are in power than women. Implicit is that it’s not the BBC’s role to change attitudes and formulate policy (there’s a thesis waiting to be done on that!)

And therein lies the paradox…..we need more women in power to hear about more women in powerful roles, but the world is ruled by men and until women get into power that won’t change….

Answers on a postcard please, or simply use the comments box below.

Click here to read Libby’s article.

“Men Cause Conflict – Women Befriend” ?

My eye was caught by a recent review of the psychological evidence re gender and aggression. Professor Mark van Vugt from the Institute for Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has reviewed all the psychological evidence and says the evidence is conclusive:

Male sex drive is at the root of most violence in the world; men are shaped by evolution to be aggressive towards ‘outsiders’. The tendency to violence is strengthened by natural selection.

Are Men Really More Violent?

It makes for hard reading. I have a son and husband who are not violent people, far from it. However, I have found myself thinking violent thoughts when one of my own has been threatened or hurt (but I have to say I have never actually hit anyone – just fantasised about it!) And if you’ve ever been in the car when someone cuts my daughter up block up your ears!

Yet the evidence is there and I know it from my work with professional women and my own experience. Generally speaking men are much more aggressive in the workplace than women and this quality is a valued one in business. We women, say the researchers, have evolved to resolve conflicts peacefully (don’t all shout “Margaret Thatcher – Faulklands” at me, she was just one woman, statistically insignificant).

Says Professor van Vugt, “A solution to conflict…remains elusive. One reason for this may be the difficulty we have in changing our mindset which has evolved over thousands of years.”

I have a solution and I’m sure you can guess what it is!

Give women equal billing in the world. Have a more gender balanced approach to power, a true balance, and lets see what happens.

If this is of interest you may also like We Women Do Compete. And do let me know what you think; I love to hear your views.

Photo Credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski

Is the Glass Ceiling Women’s Fault?

Woah, steady on me! Am I now blaming women for centuries of discrimination? Adding to the guilt which we women are so good at carrying around? (Erica Jong- “Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man”). Has it really been been our fault all along!

Well, no, of course not. But I am suggesting that maybe it’s time to examine what is going on in our heads and how much that is a barrier to our progress. Maybe we create some of our own limitations based on what we see around us and if we could free ourselves from that straitjacket we may find ourselves smashing that glass ceiling! Regardless of what is going on around us…

Women’s Strength

It takes some doing to cast off the images and impressions that we have grown up with. We’re in a kind of double bind; legislation has changed in our favour and most organisations at the very least pay lip service to the idea of gender equality, if not actively promote it. Yet there are still few women in senior positions and the role models are mainly male. The behaviour rewarded is generally male. Maybe we women look at those roles and think “I don’t want to be like that, that’s not my style, that’s not me”. That’s certainly true of a lot of the women I coach; what’s on offer doesn’t appeal and many of them end up running their own businesses or dropping out of the competition. (Sam Roddick is a great example of what I mean, see her interview with me here).

Grab the Opportunities

And there is research out there telling us that women are being hardest hit by the recession and that we are still underpaid in comparison to our male colleagues etc. All pretty dispiriting stuff. If we’re not careful we can be overwhelmed and begin to think that there is no point in trying. The truth is it’s not easy for any one, man or woman, to get to a senior position. Yes, I still believe it is harder for a woman for all sorts of reasons but it’s clearly not impossible and I think it’s eminently desirable. There is a lot on offer to help us, if we choose to take advantage of it, like the government saying it is considering imposing quotas for the number of women on British boards if there isn’t a change. What better time to try for a seat on the board! I’ve spoken with some recruitment companies who tell me that they are being asked to put more women on the shortlists they submit but are having trouble finding enough!

Be Honest

So take a few moments to reflect and ask yourself honestly, am I my biggest barrier to career advancement? And if you come up with a yes, you’re not alone. And I’m not having a go at you; there are good reasons why we feel as we do. Yet I know from my coaching of professional women that once we get our heads in the right place, it all becomes a lot easier. Have the confidence to just go for it!

“We are not touched so much by events themselves but by the view we choose to take of them” Epictetus. Choose a different view and the world could be your oyster!

And if you’d are interested in working one to one with me I have a few spaces becoming available this Spring and I’m also taking bookings for my March Speak Up course now!

Girls Just Love Pink! And blue, and green, and yellow…

Later this week I am on a radio show talking about the type of marketing aimed at girls. To be precise, pink marketing aimed at girls; little sweet princess’ marketing aimed at girls. (I would tell you the story about my son and his beloved boy doll here but he’s 25 now and probably wouldn’t thank for me it!)

Suffice to say, I don’t believe this marketing strategy is good for boys or girls; it’s stifling and dull and lacking in imagination.

Research on Pink/Blue Gender Stuff

If you’d like to read some stuff from the grown ups on pinkiness, try this article from the Guardian newspaper, written after Hamleys the famous London toy store, changed it’s policy. This is the conclusion of that piece:

“There is no scientific evidence that boys prefer blue and girls prefer pink. Up until the early 20th century the trend was the opposite and baby boys were dressed in pink and girls in blue. There are also some – small – studies suggesting that adults of different cultures have different tastes in colours. It’s clear that colour preference is learnt rather than innate.

There is some evidence that boys are in some way hardwired to express an early interest in “rough and tumble” games and toys with moving parts and girls to prefer dolls and role-play games, but this is not conclusive because the studies are often in babies and small toddlers and therefore inevitably difficult to analyse. The differences that have been found are also often not very big. At two years, for example, 52.7% of girls in one study chose to look at a dolls face over a car, compared with 47.9%; not a huge variation.

Those who argue that there is some sort of genetic or hormonal trigger that sets a gender divide in toy preference cite studies that show that girls who are overexposed to male hormones in the womb are more likely to like “boys’ toys” and others that show monkeys of different sexes following similar patterns to children. This area is fiercely contested. However, even those who argue that there are innate factors emphasis that these are small and amplified by the characteristics children acquire from birth, which in turn differentiate and shape children’s brains so that boys’ and girls’ brains might well look different.”

Another useful website on this topic is Pink Stinks which campaigns vigorously against the gender stereotyping type of marketing aimed at children.

And for a child’s view on gender stereotyping this great little video from Riley says it all really! Enjoy and doesn’t it give you hope for the future! For Pink Stuff ( a rant from Riley against gender stereotyping) click this link!

What do YOU think on Pink?

PS. I actually LOVE pink as a colour, but I’m very glad I had my children when there was a range of colours to choose from – red, blue, yellow, green, sky blue pink, polka dots, lemon, azure, maroon, purple, tartan, stripes, dots……

Photo Credit: Madlyn