On Saturday the country will celebrate National Women’s Day. For many it will be a day of celebration; for others it will not mean very much at all, especially as it benefits comparatively few as a public holiday. A lot has been written and said about the slow pace of the advancement of women into executive positions in the business world and much of this is critical, particularly if it is the gender activist doing the writing. Much of the criticism is entirely warranted.

In education, where by far the majority of teachers are female, male domination was, and still is as far as I can see, a characteristic feature. A woman Deputy Principal, who had acted, successfully, as the head of the co-educational school for well over a year and had been on the staff there for a good deal longer, applied for the position of Principal when it was eventually advertised. The first question put to her in her interview by an all-male selection panel was: “What kind of headmaster do you think we are looking for?” At this time, even primary schools which may not have had a male staff member at all, preferred a man in the head’s role. Sometimes, this preference was entirely pragmatic because it was one way of ensuring that there would be a man on the staff to attend to the boys’ sport, but usually it was a reflection of the common perception that women are not so good at discipline. This, in turn, is associated with the mistaken belief that discipline is only about power, punishment and fear. Few women were ever appointed to senior management positions in the Department. I know of one who was recruited as an acting Superintendent because she had been a very successful primary school headmistress. This was not without notability itself, for the usual pattern was that high school teachers were appointed despite the fact that the majority of learners by some distance are in primary phases. This person was fortunate enough to be appointed after acting for a long time, but she didn’t last. She could not take the absolute disregard that her male colleagues had for anything she said or did.

Because this attitude towards women was made so palpably obvious by years of discrimination, many women did not aspire to senior positions which, also, might require a family move or take them away from their families if they filled a departmental position. At that time, if not in the present day, men were far more mobile in their career movements, both laterally and vertically. Consequently, far fewer women applicants were ever under consideration for senior positions and I suspect that this remains a very significant factor in the choice or not of a female executive.

This, it seems to me, is a critical factor regarding the advancement or women. While affirmative appointment, based on three p’s – performance, promise and potential – is to be encouraged if gender equity is to be achieved, it cannot be done if women themselves also see a so-called ‘glass ceiling’ beyond which they cannot expect to rise. I think it is true to say that many PAs are highly competent people who frequently know a good deal about a company’s business and whose various skills could easily be translated into executive positions, yet they are not generally regarded as promotable into more executive positions. Even they may not recognise a career beyond the one they occupy.

It is quite inappropriate to blame women themselves for gender inequity. The fact is that centuries of chauvinism have eroded female confidence and if we wish in Business to have access to the particular skills and qualities that women are able to offer to companies in order to enhance their overall performance, we must provide every opportunity for them to fill decision-making positions. And they must do so through their own merits and not because they are put there by men.

Andrew Layman: PCB CEO

This article appeared in the Public Eye on the 7 August 2008