Posts Tagged ‘australia’
Equality Down Under
Last month, Catalyst’s Debbie Soon, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, headed “Down Under” to meet with leaders committed to diversifying Australian workplaces. In today’s guest-post, she outlines the lay of the land around gender diversity—including the challenges and opportunities—in a country known for its male-driven “blokey” culture.
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I recently returned from Australia, visiting a number of Catalyst members, partners, and colleagues (and discovering some of the most interesting wildlife I have ever seen—did you know that a cassowary is the most dangerous bird in the world?!)
Birds aside, I found that the Australian economy is vibrant and businesses are buzzing. Within corporations, in the news, and even in Parliament, the phrase “unconscious bias” seems to be at the forefront of conversations about gender diversity. Who would have thought to look “Down Under” for an example of how to mobilize a country to embrace gender diversity in the boardroom and throughout the business environment?
By 2013, all companies with 100 or more employees must report their gender statistics to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA), Catalyst’s census partner in Australia, which will compile the data and report the results to the Australian Parliament. Are companies taking this reporting requirement seriously? You bet!
No one wants to see government mandates. (Been there, done that—don’t want to do that again!) So, businesses are taking matters into their own hands and proactively seeking ways to improve their company images and their workplaces to better appeal to women and to ensure that women stay and advance through the ranks.
Corporations appear to understand that it’s their responsibility to reach out to women, starting with the top. According to the Australian Institute of Company Directors—which partnered with the Australian government to implement mentoring, coaching, and education programs for women aspiring to board positions—29% of all new appointments to ASX 200 boards so far in 2011 have been women, an improvement over the 25%, 8%, and 5% numbers in 2010, 2009, and 2008, respectively.
Whether this momentum will continue is yet to be seen. And what the organizational diversity numbers will be in 2013 when the first reports are due, is also yet to be seen. But this much is clear: Australian companies seem to be answering the gender diversity question, “If not, why not?” with the response, “Why not!”
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Debbie Soon is responsible for Catalyst’s business strategy and planning, market assessment, and overall marketing operations. For Catalyst’s entry into new markets, she sets priorities and develops the business model, entry strategy, and plan. In addition, she is responsible for brand management, corporate events, public affairs, IT, and Catalyst’s Corporate Board Services.
Debbie holds a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at San Diego and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. She also completed special studies in Mathematics at Cambridge University, England. Ms. Soon is a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Advisors of DirectWomen Board Institute and a member of the Advisory Panel to the Diverse Director DataSource, a CalPERS/CalSTRS board diversity initiative.
C This
In European companies, face time still rules. While half of the women surveyed in our latest report, Unwritten Rules: Why Doing a Good Job Might Not Be Enough Europe, didn’t think working long hours was important, more than 83% said doing so was still key to advancement. “Workers may be told that you can work from wherever, but when they see that those advancing are in the office a lot, then there is a disconnect,” said Laura Sabattini, Director, Research, and author of the new report. Read about one novel solution to managing a culture of presentism—plus news from Australia and Canada—in this edition of C This.
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Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em
Is it ethical for multinational corporations to swoop into foreign countries and hire talented women who are underutilized in the workforce? Yes! “Any time you can recruit talent it offers a company a competitive advantage,” said Lee E. Miller, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. “If a country is not using its local female talent then it is in the women’s interest and the multinational’s interest to put that talent to use.”
READ: “The Gender Advantage for Multicultural Firms,” by Elizabeth Harrin, The Glass Hammer, 1/27/11
Can a well-placed jacket earn you respect in an office that over-values face time? It couldn’t hurt, insists Eleanor Tabi Haller-Jorden, Catalyst’s General Manager in Europe. Haller-Jorden told The New York Times about a little experiment conducted by a senior-level female executive in Europe. “She put her jacket on a chair and started leaving at a reasonable hour,” she said. “Yet people started coming up to her and saying she was putting in a fabulous amount of hours. She said the jacket was the best investment of €250 that she had ever made.”
READ: “The Codes That Need To Be Broken,” by Doreen Carvajal, The New York Times, 1/26/11
A 2010 World Economic Forum survey found that managers from 600 large companies believed that a “lack of role models” and “masculine or patriarchal corporate culture” were the chief obstacles women face at work. Companies across Europe have responded by shifting away from leadership and assertiveness training to instituting formal sponsorship and mentorship programs that pair women with powerful company leaders. “European companies are waking up,” said INSEAD’s Herminia Ibarra. “They are realizing that it’s really about changing the culture.”
READ: “For Women in the Workplace, an ‘Upgrade Problem,’” by Nicola Clark, The New York Times, 1/26/11
Only 3.8% of the CEOs in Canada’s top 500 businesses are women. Are quotas one possible solution? In this wide-ranging discussion featuring background information from Catalyst’s Deborah Gillis, Canadian Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette outlines a proposed bill that would force all publicly traded Canadian companies, banks, insurance companies and trust companies to ensure that at least 5% of their directors are women. Hervieux-Payette was also joined by Dave Gregory, former CEO of First Calgary Credit Union, and Amy Dittmar, Associate Professor of Finance at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
LISTEN: “Women in Boardrooms,” The Current, CBC Radio, 1/14/11
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) now requires member companies to set and report on targets for gender diversity at board and senior management level, add diversity indicators to senior management accountabilities, and establish programs to increase the pool of female candidates. With representation of women on ASX boards now roughly only 10%, the new rules are an important step to increasing awareness and transparency. “This year will tell whether rising awareness will force more assertive leadership,” wrote Steve Harris executive director of the Centre for Leadership and Public Interest at Swinburne University.
READ: “Find Room at the Top for Women,” by Steve Harris, The Australian, 1/27/11
Edit This!
New research into who creates and consumes content on Wikipedia raises more questions than it answers. A recent study found that barely 13% of Wikipedia’s articles are written by women. The site boasts more than 3.5 million articles in English and 17 million across all languages—each written and edited anonymously. Interestingly, women and men look for information on the site at similar rates. So why do fewer women contribute? Critics allege that women are less willing to assert their opinions in public, but if you ask me, I think women are simply too busy to spend their time anonymously updating the site without receiving any credit for their hard work. What do you think is behind the wiki-gap?
What’s Up in Australia
Guest blog by Anne Summers, writer, journalist and author in Sydney
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Australia’s reputation for being a “blokey,” male-dominated, female-unfriendly country is being mugged by the reality that women now occupy a significant number of the nation’s highest positions.
The Prime Minister, the Governor-General (Australia’s head of state), the deputy leader of the Opposition, 20% of the federal cabinet, 35% of the Senate, 27% of the House of Representatives and three of the seven members of the highest court are women.
In New South Wales, the most populous state, a female triumvirate reigns supreme: the state’s governor, the premier, and the mayor of its capital city, Sydney, are all women—as are 28% of its parliamentarians. Oh, and the deputy Premier is female. A woman also heads Queensland—a state that in the past was often referred to as the “Deep North” for its aggressively masculine and, often, racist culture.
When the politically powerful get together, the photographs sometimes suggest that men are now the minority when it comes to running the country.
Yet even Australians are surprised when presented with these facts. It’s as if we had not noticed these incremental improvements until just seven weeks ago when Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister. It took all the publicity that accompanied Gillard taking over the highest job in the land to reveal the welcome news that with so many other women in important positions, maybe Australia was not such a chauvinist backwater after all.
Suddenly, as we looked around, and counted up the women, we could hold our heads high. Even if the picture is not so rosy when it comes to business, when it comes to political leadership Australian women are finally at the podium, the table, the bench, everywhere it counts.
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Anne Summers is a Sydney-based writer, journalist and author, whose latest books are The Lost Mother and On Luck. She writes opinion columns for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Sunday Age. Anne helped organize and facilitate the annual Serious Women’s Business conference, Australia’s pre-eminent conference for women aspiring to leadership, from 2001-2009. Her book The End of Equality was published in 2003 and her autobiography Ducks on the Pond came out in 1999.
Cleaning Up
In the early 1970s, I was among a handful of women in Harvard’s M.B.A. program. One day in class, we were assigned a case study on marketing floor wax. I’ll never forget it: all of my male classmates looked to me for advice!
The assumption was that because I was a woman, I would know something about waxing a floor. They were surprised when I said I didn’t. Was this a harmless case of stereotyping? Maybe. But I was offended.
More than 30 years later, I am still upset by blatant stereotyping—especially in the media. While men perform more housework today than ever before, some newspapers and magazines continue to portray women as mere risk-averse cleaner-uppers.
Last month, for instance, Jullia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, replacing Kevin Rudd as head of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Sexist headlines followed. “Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Messy ALP Clean Up,” charged the Daily Telegraph. “Gillard Must Mop Up Swan’s Mess,” wrote the Business Spectator, referring to Treasurer Wayne Swan.
In 2008, Iceland’s appointment of two women to rebuild the country’s shattered banking system garnered similar headlines. “Iceland Appoints Women to Clean Up ‘Male Mess,’” said the Financial Times. The Guardian proffered: “Women Clean Up the Bankers’ Mess.”
American media also stereotype. In May, Time magazine featured on its cover three stern-faced women in business suits with the text: “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street: The women charged with cleaning up the mess.” While the article is well-written, the cover seems to imply that FDIC chair Sheila Bair, SEC chair Mary Schapiro and TARP chair Elizabeth Warren are humorless cleaners. And last year ForbesWoman ran an article about financial oversight headlined, “Cleaning Crew: The Women Who are Fixing the Financial Mess.” It featured a picture of a woman in business attire and rubber gloves cleaning up a chalkboard with a watery sponge.
These images reminded me of sexist advertisements from the 1960s. But it’s 2010, people—let’s act like it!
It’s easy to fall back on old stereotypes, but if you take a minute to engage your brain, you’ll find that less offensive and more accurate terms for female leaders exist. To do otherwise is just plain sexist. Is “cleaning up” a leadership trait? I don’t think so.
C This
Strike up the band! ForbesWoman called Catalyzing “an insightful blog,” and named it and the Catalyst website to its roster of the top 100 websites for women. Toronto hosted an inaugural G(irls) 20 Summit. Australia swore in its first female Prime Minister. Good news galore in this edition, but alas that isn’t the whole story. Read on for the not-so-good developments!
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Best of the Best
We’re five months old and going strong. ForbesWoman rounded up the best 100 websites for working women, and Catalyzing and the Catalyst website made the cut. “We looked for compelling and decidedly female-oriented content, outstanding design, an active community and frequent updates,” wrote ForbesWoman. A big thank you to the magazine and to readers like you!
READ: “Top 100 Websites for Women,” by Meghan Casserly and Jenna Goudreau, ForbesWoman, 6/23/10
Diversity Down Under
Australia swore in its first female Prime Minister, but gender equality still has a long way to go. “Just look at the upper echelons of business, the military, the churches and the federal public service, and you will see that women are as rare in these arenas as female prime ministers once were,” writes Anne Summers. “Now this barrier is broken, perhaps it is time to address the others.”
READ: “Historic Moment, but Barriers Remain for Half the Population,” by Anne Summers, The Age, 6/25/10
Girls Speak Up
Twenty-one girls representing each of the G20 nations and one from the African Union gathered in Toronto to discuss ways to fulfill United Nations goals that impact women and girls. “I would ask the leaders of the G20 nations to reduce the arms expenditures and instead use it for education,” said Aiki Segawa, the representative from Japan. Will the G20 leaders listen?
READ: “Girls Talk–Are G20 Leaders Listening?” by Craig and Marc Kielburger, Toronto Star, 6/21/10
Work and Life
Is it really about balance? For Judith Timson, the issue is the “separation” between work and the rest of life. “And here,” she writes, “no matter what stage we’re at, we’re failing.”
READ: “Work-life Balance? Can that Cliché,” by Judith Timson, Globe and Mail, 6/17/10
Tuning Out Women
According to American University’s Women & Politics Institute, female lawmakers have comprised 13.5% of the Sunday news show appearances by representatives and senators in 2010. Does the overrepresentation of men on the shows contribute to a tendency to “think-leader-think-male”?
READ: “Women Scarce on Sunday Shows,” by Erika Lovley, Politico, 6/13/10
Bridging the Gap
Long live the gender pay gap! “When the Equal Pay Act passed, women earned, on average, 60 cents for every dollar earned by men,” writes Linda Meric, Executive Director of 9to5 National Association of Working Women. “In the 47 years that have passed, the pay gap has closed by less than less than 20 cents.”
C This
In this edition, myths about working mothers are busted, the importance of engaging women on climate change is explored, and Australia’s “blokey,” or chauvinistic, culture is analyzed. Author Susan Douglas takes on “a new, subtle form of sexism,” and we look at disturbing information about the wealth gap for black and Hispanic women in America.
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Gap, What Gap?
Startling new data on the wealth gap for single black and hispanic women only garnered one national television news mention, one NPR news story, two opinion pieces and one newspaper report. What did everyone miss? The fact that “single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women $120—dramatically lower than white men ($43,800), white women ($41,500) or black men ($7,900),” according to the report.
READ: “Wealth Gap Yawns—and So Do Media,” by Julie Hollar, Extra!, June 2010
Women in a Warming World
“Women need to be protected, engaged, and empowered for climate solutions to truly succeed,” writes Kari Manlove of the Center for American Progress. Involving women at high-level climate negotiations is one place to start.
READ: “Women’s Role in a Warming World,” by Kari Manlove, Center for American Progress, 5/26/10
Inequity Down Under
Last year, the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX) announced a proposal to expand corporate governance principles to include a mandatory gender diversity policy. In a country where a “blokey” culture rules, what effect will this have upon Australian corporate culture?
READ: “Not So Wizard in Oz,” by Cleo, The Gender Blog, 5/26/10
Myth Busting
The Washington Post tackles myths about working mothers. Did you know, for example, that working women (and men, for that matter) today spend more time with their children than ever before? Or that the more education a woman receives the less likely she is to “op-out” of her career? Consider these myths busted.
READ: “Five myths about working mothers,” by Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, The Washington Post, 5/30/10
An Insidious Bias
What is “enlightened sexism?” According to author Susan Douglas, this new, subtle form of sexism “insists that full equality for women has been achieved … so it’s OK to resurrect retrograde, sexist images of women in the media, all with a wink and a laugh.” I agree with Douglas— how else to explain the sexist imagery and language that still pervades our media?
READ: “The New Sexism,” by Laura Fitzpatrick, Time, 3/16/10
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