subscribe: Posts | Comments

Yorkshire women’s business forum against quotas

5 comments

Summary of story from insider, August 19, 2011

Business leaders in Yorkshire, England, have rejected a formal quota system aimed at securing more women in senior business roles.

They have instead encouraged women to recognise their own potential and to push harder for positions in the boardroom.

A round table event held by The Women’s Business Forum, discussed quotas in light of Lord Davies’ recent report into gender inequality in the boardrooms of the UK’s top companies (see WVoN coverage).

Attendees unanimously voted against a quota and felt women should secure the positions for themselves with the aid of support from media and recruitment companies.

  1. Jane Da Vall says:

    Do they think women just aren’t trying hard enough? Because women securing positions for themselves hasn’t been successful to date.

    • Yes they do believe that! And when you meet them and listen to them you see why they hold these views.

      Despite what they and some readers may think…these women are not wholly representative of business owners in Yorkshire. Unfortunately their attitudes are quite dominant so they have a pervasive impact on the thinking of the less well informed. In particular they don’t accept there is an alternative valid explanation.

      Those of us who know there is no such thing as a level playing field don’t have the time or the resources to waste challening them by providing evidence, statistics and research to dispute their beliefs as we know how they will respond. They will wheel out the example of someone who overcame the odds as if this person is representative of womankind generally. It is depressingly predictable.

      It is implicit in what they are saying they believe that one or two examples of women overcoming the odds means there is lots of space for everyone to do the same. The workshops, lunches etc promote these messages relentlessly. If science operated within such limited parameters it would be incapable of being taken seriously and so must this argument be…it is nothing more than the “stopped clock” analogy.

      If it were true that all we need is the right attitudes and apptitudes to achieve commercial success then I would like it explained to me why those of us who can tick all those boxes and more …remain excluded from the circles of power and influence!

      We are living in dark times where inequality is on the rise so it is to be expected these reactionary views will come to the fore. At such moments in history many people need this type of “dream” to remain “hopeful”..as the majority of us are now more than fully aware we are expected to be willing to work for less, for longer and with little or no likelihood of respect, acknowledgement or proper “reward” for our contributions to society.

      My biggest fear is that most people (not just women) are so profoundly uneducated on the issue of inequality it is virtually impossible to have any sort of meaningful dialogue with a view to creating change.

      The greater the challenges we face in society generally the more people are distracted from doing other than surviving from day to day..week to week…month to month.

      I have no doubt future generations will look back at such pronouncements as these women have made and consider them alarming. In the same way as we now view arguments promoting the institutionalisation for life of some young women who were made pregnant outside of wedlock in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

      I think that for those of us who are challenging the status quo it is simpler to focus on growing networks and communities of women who adopt a real world strategy for their business not one that forces them to collude in their own oppression in the hope they will be granted a few occasional crumbs from the table!

      The other question to be asked here is who would want to be part of a community that is happy to collude in the belief that men are fundamentally smarter and more “deserving”! Certainly not me…and thankfully…not most of the men I know either!

      • I’ve seen some… don’t know how to describe it. Women who proclaim and believe that they are ‘just as good as any man’ so who reject any attempts to level the playing field so that they can prove it equally. I think the thinking goes that they should be well able to succeed on their merits alone and any attempts at equality make them look weak and will be thrown in their faces by scornful men. So, no ‘special consideration’ allowed.

        For the sort of men who say ‘well, Ms. M made it with no extra help!’ I’d start asking why they aren’t billionaires, since it’s obviously possible. I mean, Richard Branson did it with no extra help, didn’t he? Bill Gates? So why aren’t they all climbing the same giddy heights?

  2. Jane Da Vall says:

    Jane,
    I have sympathy for young women thinking this way, I did for a long time and thought just what you say, Halla, that being given special consideration has a cost in how you are perceived. Now I think, ‘so what?’ The hard time women will undoubtedly be given, if and when quotas come in, is just the price to pay for making progress. No-one is being asked to throw themselves under the King’s horse, are they? If women can’t take a little ridicule for the sake of equality then we don’t want it very much.

    There really is no excuse for experienced women to have such a blinkered view. Even if they have reached the top themselves, not to have noticed women all around them falling by the wayside and come to any conclusion other than that they weren’t trying hard enough is sad indeed.

    • Not so much the fear of ridicule as the notion that receiving help is some sort of tacit acknowledgement that women *aren’t* good enough – damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But then, it’s business and we are told that being ruthless is the way to the top so do it and be damned. *And* be damned successful at the same time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *