Women – start up and crack that glass ceiling!
September 4th, 2008 by mariska“A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 212 years, just slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in Parliament”
This is the tagline for a new report by the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights released today. And it contained some interesting stats….
- Only 11% of directors in FTSE companies are women
- Small business do a little better, with 14% having a majority of women directors
- 17.6% is women’s average representation in media and culture
Doesn’t that make you wonder whether perhaps work-life balance isn’t the only reason why women start up their own business? And I’m not the first one to think that enterprise can be a great way to get around that glass ceiling. Check out what Sarah Veale, TUC, said about the glass ceiling and the Future Face of Enterprise – a MYM project where we asked 50 entrepreneurs, experts and opinion leaders what they thought the future face of enterprise will look like – http://draft.makeyourmark.org.uk/policy/future_face_of_enterprise/who_else/sarah_veale
Ladies and, of course, gentlemen, what do you think? Is the glass ceiling really made of concrete, as the CEHR says? And is enterprise an alternative way for women to achieve success? Or is there a ‘concrete’ ceiling in enterprise as well?
For more interesting stats, see the CEHR report here http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/projects/workingbetter/sexandpower/pages/variationsitedefault.aspx
Mariska
September 6th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Sarah Veale’s comments are amusing: she complains that the workplace is unfair because if you leave to have a baby you fall behind in career and pay.
That seems fair to me. Unfair would be if a woman were re-hired at the same rate having taken four years out (one average I’ve read), while the job and the company and the world changes in their absence.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
It is unfair if they’re capable of doing the job even after it has changed in their absence. They should recieve appropriate training so that they are capable of doing the job they previously held. It’s their personal choice if they leave work to have children and they shouldn’t be punished for that choice.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Agree completely with Peter, not at all with Hoover. Hoover, you’re suggesting demoting women who return to work after having children? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’re still the same people, with the same qualities the company valued when they hired them in the first place.
Also, I’m a bit puzzled by Hoover’s comment that “the world” would have moved on in the woman’s “absence” from it. Does this mean people caring for a child are in some sort of limbo, outside of the world? Don’t understand this, sorry.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Voxtrot: I’ll tighten the phrase up and say “the world of work” changes.
Sure, women are the same people after four years. But the skills they need to do a job change, the knowledge they amass is no longer as relevant as before (contacts with customers, relations in the firm, knowledge of standard operating procedures, IT skills, etc). Plus they simply forget some of it.
Just as a man would do if he were away for four years.
Where’s the problem?
September 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
The problem is that the pay gap between women and men is already large enough without women being punished for being forced to be the main child career. If all men received the same amount of leave when they have a child maybe women would’nt feel blackmailed into being the primary career. Women get more leave, thus women feel they have to stay at home, thus women are left behind in both pay and advancement. Equal rights should mean absolutly equal in my opinion.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Sure, women are the same people after four years. But the skills they need to do a job change, the knowledge they amass is no longer as relevant as before (contacts with customers, relations in the firm, knowledge of standard operating procedures, IT skills, etc). Plus they simply forget some of it.