It’s been 30 some-odd years since the bra-burning epidemic of the seventies. On the surface it may seem that the fight for equal rights amongst the sexes is an unnecessary response to an imbalance of the past, but institutional sexism is a present-day matter and diversity within the workplace is still far from complete. Men fill the majority of directorial positions in companies, get paid more, and are socially expected to spend considerably less time on domestic chores. We may have made progress but will we ever live in a completely egalitarian society?
Quick brainstorming of celebrated “leaders” will likely result in far fewer female names than male. Margaret Thatcher, Marie Curie, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Cleopatra come to mind, but not many more. Men comprise the majority of leadership positions in the public and private spheres today. Fewer than 10% of the world’s top 300 companies’ board members and directors are women, according to a recent study conducted by Ricol Lasteyrie and Associates. Is this imply due to a lack of leadership development available to female professionals or arte there deeper, more psychological barriers?
It’s fair to say that stereotypes about women having weaker leadership qualities are so deeply embedded in contemporary thought that women have internalized them. The widespread notion that women are more emotional thinkers with nurturing qualities not assertive enough to take charge in a fast-paced and highly competitive environment has quite possibly taken its toll on the status quo. Ella Smolevitskaya, Head of Diversity at Hewlett-Packard, confirms this possible setback: “Sometimes women experience a lack of trust in their skills during the early stages of their career. They have to prove their management, technical, and negotiation skills to their colleagues.”
This, arguably, is a result of socialisation. Girls are taught to be delicate, quiet beings, while boys are taught to be aggressive, tough, and able to successfully take charge of a situation. Girls are expected to be polite and submissive; boys, on the other hand, are to assert their ideas with the fearlessness of a crocodile hunter.
The lack of female business leaders can further have a strong effect on girls and young women. From the get-go they see the absence of female leaders, and as a result, may subconsciously feel they don’t have the leadership qualities boys have to ‘make it.’ Furthermore, socialised values like the idea that women lack technical, scientific, and mathematic capabilities to propel businesses to the forefront of the market, can be less than encouraging to girls. Jelena Radonjic, Head of the Leadership Career Forums expresses the need to promote equal values: “one of the reasons why we created the Women in Leadership events was to provide a platform for equality. Leading companies like Shell and HP want a diverse workforce, and ambitious young women need a space to assert themselves, ultimately providing a proactive field free of socially-imagined barriers.”