Of the points you have made above, the one that I feel I needed to comment on most was the quota for a % of women on the board of an organisation. I believe this was mooted by Harriet Harman on more than one occasion.

 My thoughts are that we should strive towards a genuine meritocracy. As such people should be appointed to positions on their ability, achievements, and competence to perform such a role...either at board level or anywhere in an organisation.

Should a quota for a % of women on a board be proscribed runs two risks. Firstly, that the best person for the job may be overlooked on the simple factor of not being a woman. Secondly, whether true or not, unnecessary conflict can arise if one woman is appointed as a 'box ticking exercise' simply to meet legal requirements.

 Perhaps though the the fact this is seen as a recurring suggestion is a damning indictment that there aren't the attitudes, personal or institutional, that we would strive, wish, and indeed, should have.

 Another point you have made is interesting regarding working hours and school hours. It makes a theoretical sense...however working hours (assuming full time working) are longer than school hours. Perhaps some creative thinking here?

Is the glass ceiling really there for women, or is it there for parents who decide to look after children and then maybe engage in flexible working regardless of gender.

I'll say this again, equality can't be expected when men are discriminated against in terms of paternity vs. maternity leave. 

I agree with Polar Bear's comment. The 'glass ceiling' created by flexible working requirements applies to working mothers and fathers - though women are still more likely to be the main carers (could it be to do with the fact that women get paid 28%* less than their male counterparts according to some recent US research?).

The women we spoke also cited another major challenge they faced - the difficulty of being taken seriously in a male-dominated business - something reflected in Sarah Read's comments above.

 *In 2008, the median weekly earnings for women in full-time management, professional, and related occupations in the US was $892, compared to $1,238 for men. 

 

The visiblity of all the data has been pumped out for many years with little overall impact. The difficulty is 'changing the power base', those in power remain in power. Maybe the energy needs to be focused on the 'power' mentality.

As I do not know, are there any particular 'professions' were there is clearly 'equal power'?

Best regards

Cliff Moggs

 

Those statistics really are astounding and quite shocking. A £10,000 annual difference in salary is incredibly significant, and surely incompatible with equality laws on workers (not just for gender but also for age, religion, etc.) One wonders why such discrepancies have not been more regularly faced by legal challenges.

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Adrian Clifton
Improving CIMA's website group administrator and CIMA web editor
http://community.cimaglobal.com/groups/content

As a working mum myself, just thought I'd add some ideas to the pot based on what I've noticed.

The first thing about balancing work and family demands is that it is a dynamic situation.  Let's assume for a moment that you don't have access to reliable childcare.  Children have this habit of growing up and their needs change.  Babies and toddlers need a lot of time, but once they are off to primary school, you have about 5.5 hours to work with.  Creative employers should be able to use this time so that employees can continue to make a contribution and enhance their skills.  I come across so many highly-skilled parents who would love to work, but they are restricted by having or wishing  to be at the school gate at certain times.  There's no reason in my mind that a way can't be found for them to work shorter hours and then maybe do some work from home.  Fast forward a few more years and when children are in the juniors (age 7-11), it becomes more feasible to use after school clubs - and by the time they are 11, they are in secondary school and don't need you there at the school gate.  So, you gradually get more and more time available over a period of years. 

There are also ways of packaging projects and assignments so that you can work flexibly and at least keep skills current until you are in a position to increase hours again.  So it might take longer to get to board level, but it does seem a waste of skilled resources for employers not to accommodate what is a temporary need!

School run starts again tomorrow!!

Best wishes

Gillian

As it happens (long story), my husband and I do split the childcare and domestic duties, but like all change management programmes, it did take time and involved some false starts.  Here are some of my key learnings:

 - cultivate a weakness.  Mine is vacuum cleaning while a friend of mine makes no bones about the fact that she can't iron.  Make sure that any attempts to train you prove useless.  It might go against the grain, but it yields long-term benefits.

 - document key procedures.  I wrote down the recipes for our favourite dinners only to find that he has improved on all of them.

 - resist the temptation to criticise eg why did you dress the baby in that dreadful outfit?  Or you didn't iron this properly.  Remember practice makes perfect (except as it applies to you - see point 1)

And good luck!

Gillian 

 

The issues faced by women and childcare are not specific to them - as we go through life our work:life balance ratio changes. When you start out as new employee you are generally unencumbered by many other demands on your time (not always), and your focus is on the new job - so you give it your all, and set up some perhaps unintended hostages to fortune - the ability and apparent desire to devote your entire life to work. Not all individuals do submit to this - those who are interested in politics and sports often find a balance between the paycheque role and the other interests. But as life goes on the demands on your time for "other" committments waxes and wanes - children, aged parents, ill partners, new hobbies and interests - and all of these need to be shoe-horned into the day that you started out filling with work...we need collectively to get a grip on this, acknowledge and manage the changing life time balances as we grow, and it really should not be beyond the wit of "man" to adapt working life and jobs to fit around the rest of our lives, rather than suit a relative minority of senior management who have no life beyond the workplace (for which the golf-club is merely an extension).With the increasing issues around employment and retirement ages this will become an ever more general issue.

Personally, as a woman who does not want children, I feel that I am discriminated against in the workplace in other ways. e.g. if I want to leave early or change my hours to work around outside interests / commitments, will I be allowed to do this? Normally not. If I had a child would I be able to do this? In most cases - yes.

If I want to leave on time irrespective of imminent deadlines & ask colleagues to pick up the workload, can I do this? No. Can a mother do this? Of course.

Aside from the gender pay gap, there are many other inequities in the workplace.

Some people demand the best of both worlds, which is not really reasonable / feasible.