Bucking the stereotype: First Women Working Lunch reveals hurdles still remain
First Women Exclusives · September 23, 2015
A shocking report recently laid bare the extent of gender discrimination in Britain, claiming that deep inequalities remained between women and men – and that the situation may be getting worse.
With that in mind, we brought together the victors of the 2015 First Women Awards for a maiden First Women Working Lunch to discover what they thought could be done to improve the female agenda in the UK.
In The Young Foundation’s latest report, entitled “UNEQUAL NATION – the case for social innovation to work for a gender equal future”, it was suggested that while the UK’s “systemic” gender problems are on the agenda, businesses and government alike are not putting enough money into tackling the issue.
The gender pay gap remains at 19 per cent, while the nation fell from ninth to 26th place in the World Economic Forum’s global ranking. It has also recorded its lowest overall score for equality since 2008, with young people increasingly facing unprecedented cultural and media pressures to “fit in”.
Needless to say, the report’s authors claim it is “a robust retort” to those who say that gender equality has been achieved in Britain.
Trying to get to the heart of what challenges women still faced, Real Business asked its inspirational First Women Awards winners and judges what obstacles impeded the progress of females to create an agenda of their own.
The debate remained heated throughout, with the revelation that many men still clung to traditional stereotypes featuring – whether it was through unconscious bias or not.
We’ve all heard of “lipstick entrepreneurs”, “mumpreneuers” and “fempreneurs” – terms the First Women were none too happy about. It was suggested that by using such terms, it reinforced the entrenched perception that starting your own business was largely the realm of men. And if women were already being segmented into their own category with titles such as lipstick entrepreneurs, and at a disadvantage just on account of their gender, then younger generations would likely be discouraged from progressing.
Such unconscious bias is, of course, a wide-ranging problem. For example, orchestras have introduced blind auditions conducted behind a screen to ensure hiring is solely done on merit – with the addition of carpeted floor so women’s high-heels don’t give anything away.
However, what really caught the attention of the First Women network was maternity leave – and the challenges that came alongside it. A report from late 2013 by charity Maternity Action found that around 60,000 women are forced out of jobs because they’re pregnant or on maternity leave.
“It’s truly odd given the fact that we’re not the only nation to have women go on maternity leave,” said Mandeep Rai, the CEO of Creative Visions Global. “I don’t see why we’re not looking at our neighbours.”
Indeed, rumour has it that shared parental leave had its origins in a trip prime minister David Cameron took to Sweden. In Sweden, as well as in other Nordic countries, parental leave is strongly oriented towards supporting a dual earner family, whereby both parents are involved in both the labour market and care work and earnings-related parental insurance benefits entitle both parents to extensive leave.
Rai went on to say that maternity leave was discrimination against all women. “Women between the ages of 30 and 40 are discriminated against whether they have children or not because the employer is waiting for them to have children and ends up holding them back a little.”
There also seemed to be the issue of attracting talent, with SMEs unlikely to be able to afford the type of environment that had been made popular by larger technology companies. This involves a period of time where employers double up on the salary of a certain job role, providing cover for those on maternity leave and keeping the role open. These kind of firms of then able to create flexibility when a woman comes back come back – something said to prove detrimental to many SMEs.
With that in mind, were there other methods that could be used to keep talent within the company? One offered solution was to, instead of peeling back the responsibility of women coming back from maternity leave, throw them in the deep end by giving them something challenging to do.
Furthermore, over 40 years since the Dagenham machinists took action that led to the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, women still earn less than men. The First Women particularly criticised the so-called “motherhood penalty”, whereby women were far more likely to work part-time than full-time due to childcare responsibilities. This type of work was cited as being typically less well-paid.
Once again, stereotyping reared its ugly head. Jobs traditionally done by women, such as cleaning and catering, are classed as undervalued and provide lower pay than jobs traditionally done by men, such as construction and engineering. And despite a government scheme to encourage large companies to publish salaries, by April 2015 there had seen been five large employers which had conducted and published gender pay audits.
More interestingly, however, was that many felt the very legislation meant to help them was getting in the way. It was suggested legislation made small businesses extend maternity leave, whereby a position needed to be left open for that period of time. However, this didn’t necessarily mean that the employee would come back to work, and employers felt they couldn’t chase up to make sure they would be coming back due to fear of discrimination claims.
What was clear was that the issue of women in the workplace, despite its progress over the years, was often seen by corporations as the preserve of red tape, or a box to be ticked by the HR department. And the way forward was for employers to extend support to both men and women on an equal basis.
Furthermore, women needed to step up to the plate and support each other as well.
To have a look at what else was on the minds of the guests of the First Women Working Lunch, please have a look at the video below.
