What can we all do to continue to rebalance the gap and why should we?

A young woman learning business

My mum made it look easy, she is from Accrington Lancashire UK, and lived in exotic places across the world including Africa and Singapore. She had 4 kids, ran her own business, and lived her authentic life. She even drove into the Congo one weekend in the 1970s for something to do, bumped into the British consulate who told them to get out fast, it was independence weekend and there would be violence. I grew up on these stories, she seemed fearless to me. 

She met my dad while still married and followed her heart across the ocean to New Zealand and after some time in Asia she finally settled in Australia, she was 42. I grew up in the sunny suburbs of Australia, safe and with an amazing education thanks to her. 

She was in charge, and she made bold decisions, nothing stopped her. She left the Catholic Church because she wanted to take birth control, she marched for women’s liberation, and she was the first female president of the Rotary Club in Dunsborough, West Australia. I grew up believing that my mum’s generation had solved all of our gender issues and opened up the world for us, and they did, but not quite. They started the job, but the job is not yet done. 

So, I went about my early life believing I could be anything and do anything. I grew up feeling gender-neutral, able to pursue things that I enjoyed and for me, it wasn’t dolls it was riding BMX bikes. That was ok. And I always had a burning desire to be successful, professionally. 

I was aware that my home country of Australia was sexist. I was once told, by a famous touring golf professional, that I could not have a job at a golf shop because I was a woman and “men want to be served by a man in a golf shop”. I was told men when sharing thoughts “but what do know, you are just a girl”, “go inside and make the salads, the men stand at the BBQ”. This was in the 90s, not the 40s! 

Believing my challenge was specific to my home country, I travelled across the world to find more opportunities, and the UK delivered. There were opportunities everywhere and my career began, my sexist worries were behind me, or so I thought. 

As I progressed in my career, I found myself constantly surrounded by rooms of men. While working at one of the world’s largest consultancies an ex-military man referred to me as admin support when I was a consultant like all the other men on the team, and he told me point blank that my CV was not true. He seemed shocked that I was able to deliver a high-quality presentation to one of our clients and pulled me to one side to say he was impressed. I told him “That’s what I do”, and I asked why he was so surprised. 

At the same organisation, I was appalled by the imbalance of male to female partners. The organisation I refer to, now still reports a 10% gender pay gap. I saw men move up to the top layers of the business while women were left at more junior levels or often courted by the senior men. 

In another role I was told by a male colleague to “wear my stilettoes and short skirt for tomorrow’s meeting, we might get a better deal”. 

And I believe that every woman in business can share similar stories. 

What I learned was that the world is sexist. Australia at the time just didn’t bother to hide it. 

Women in leadership

We know through research that women outperform men in leadership positions, especially in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world we live in. Women score highly in the behaviours that we now know achieve better results, empathy, emotional intelligence, moral sensibility, self-control, collaboration, and empowering others. And there are larger numbers of men diagnosed with dark traits such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, egocentricity and antisocial personality disorder. 

Research shows us that those with dark traits are more likely to emerge as leaders but when it comes to performance they can have extremely negative effects on teams and businesses. 

And we now know this collectively. Gallup data tells us that in 1953, 66% of those polled in the US preferred a male leader. Recent polls show that this number is now 23%. 

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of the leading gender consultancy, was recently quoted in a Forbes article about women in leadership as saying “The mountain of evidence keeps growing. Women leaders outperform. Especially during a crisis. Companies with more of them do better. Countries led by women are managing the Covid crisis better than their male counterparts.” 

So, if we know that women are better leaders on the whole, why are we not in charge? In that same Forbes article they don’t sugar coat it,  contributor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic tells us “The painful truth is that feminism is a data-driven bias, whereas sexism is self-destructive”. 

I would add that we are attracted to men in leadership perhaps even especially those who present darker traits because they appear, strong, confident, and courageous. We have spent centuries watching men in high-ranking leadership roles and perhaps even feel safe with them in power as they appear to be able to make the difficult decisions. And when hiring we pretend to run objective processes but statistically, we just pick the person we like. Generally, based on their confidence. 

While studying for my MBA I read about an experiment, groups of 10 people were put together and a leader was randomly selected. They were asked to carry out a simple task as a group, matching CVs to roles. The leader was tested on the psychopathic scale and the team was asked to rank the effectiveness of their leader. Leaders higher on the scale were ranked higher by their team. Those with a more collaborative style ranked lower, but the lower-ranked leaders’ groups achieved better results in the given task. 

The World Bank has calculated the loss due to gender inequality. They believe that the world’s GDP is $12 trillion US lower today than it would be if we had gender equality. This is creating a loss of circa $23kUS per person globally. The World Bank says, “human capital wealth could increase by 21.7% globally, and total wealth by 14% with gender equality in earnings”. 

But even with this in mind, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic makes a good point. Arguments for gender equality and equal pay must be driven by data, statistics, and research. While those who are in power are the ones recruiting and promoting, and they will keep on recruiting and promoting people they like and trust, men. And more often than not men with confidence, charisma, courage and strength rather than those with merit and capability to do the job. 

What can we do about it?

The first Women’s Day was marked in the United States in 1909 and the first International Women’s Day took place in 1975 and was made official by the UN. Since then, we have come a long way. But, as I mentioned, there is work to be done and we all have a responsibility to make things better. Not just for women but for all who are impacted by bias and discrimination, including race, sexuality, religion, and disability. 

Believe Earth gives us tips that everyone can follow to continue the rebalance: 

• Share household chores and childcare equally in the home
• Look out for signs of domestic violence
• Support mothers and parents
• Reject chauvinistic, racist, or discriminatory attitudes
• Listen and reflect
• Hire diversity
• Pay equally for work
• Exercise zero tolerance on sexual harassment and racism
• Provide anti-bias training

As I embark on a new chapter as Founder and Managing director of a new venture, Portare Solutions, I pledge as a business owner to do what is right for gender, and all equality and we as a team promise to go further and influence others to do the same. 

We salute and thank all of the amazing women in the world. Whether in business, working hard as a mother, or whatever you do, we thank you and support you. And we hope that we can one day live in a world where you can pursue your dreams, whatever they may be.