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As a report suggests progress on closing the gender pay gap is slowing, lawyer
and life peer Baroness Kennedy looks to the new shadow cabinet, where a third
of members have to be female, and argues it could be an interesting blueprint
for all workplaces.
Continue reading the main story
Start Quote
Baroness Kennedy
Men can laugh, but underneath the badinage is a continuing truth that women are
still not up there in the top jobs
End Quote Baroness Kennedy President, Women of the Year Lunch
So women will make up nearly half of Ed Miliband's shadow cabinet. I told my
sons this was to foreshadow things to come.
The White House has just produced a report that says no quantum leap will be
made on the issue of gender unless there is a critical mass of women in any
workplace.
If we want things to change we are going to have to get tough - at least a
third of the army to be women, a third of submariners and a third of the
Arsenal football team.
It was the Arsenal bit that brought a narrowing of their eyes. I held their
gaze with a fixed stare. This was a crucial test of the feminist mothering of
sons.
"Could work. We haven't won the trophy for five years. There are no English
players. But they'd have to be fit."
"Of course, they'd be fit." I said. "This is Premier League football we are
talking about. Women can do it."
Arsenal's Gael Clichy, Andrey Arshavin, Henri Lansbury and Samir Nasri Would an
influx of female players into Arsenal's men's first team boost women's status
at work?
"Fit, Mum. Good looking. Distract the other side, Mum. It could work."
Men can laugh. But underneath the badinage is a continuing truth that, despite
all the gains, women are still not up there in the top jobs; one woman in the
Supreme Court, a tiny number heading FTSE companies, a third of all boards
totally male.
It is not a great story. Last week Chambers Directory gave awards to lawyers
and barely a woman got a mention. There were yards of men in penguin suits and
hardly a sequinned frock to be seen.
When I became President of the Women of the Year Lunch the grumblers all asked
why such an event was necessary in 2010.
"What are you thinking about, Helena. All that is old hat." Really?
Gender Pay Gap
Source: CMI
And the naysayers are not all men on this score. Some women too think the day
has gone for celebrating women's achievements, though they are usually women
who live and work in the comfort zones.
I have worked too long in law to think that everything has been done on
equality for women.
The prevalence of domestic violence and the failure of the justice system on
rape cases are testament to continuing problems here, but the fact that women
continue to suffer most human rights abuses around the world - from honour
killing to genital mutilation, from stoning to forced marriage, from abortion
of the girl child to sexual violence and trafficking - tells us that there is
still much to done.
When I was a young woman at the Bar, there were chambers with an unofficial
policy that they just did not take women - women did not have what it took to
stand up in court and argue coherently or cross-examine. Our brains were not
suited to the kind of logical discipline that the law required.
Helena Kennedy in 1992 As a young barrister, Helena Kennedy observed sexism
within the profession
Then there were those chambers that were cannier, whose leaders said: "Women?
We are not against women. We've got one." Those were the days.
Women are now half the intake in most university courses, including law. They
appear to be everywhere.
Yet women still do not follow through into the senior jobs. We keep being told
it is just a matter of time and that evolution will solve the problem, as
though, like fish growing feet, women will eventually develop into the kind of
person who can wield power.
In most institutions, women have reached a plateau at around 18% in senior
roles from the financial sector to the judiciary.
The interesting question now is why we are stuck. Usually it is a combination
of factors around the inability of institutions to adapt and become more
flexible to accommodate women's lives but it is also about the culture of
organisations, exclusive networks which work to the disadvantage of women, and
the failure of leading men to bring talented women on.
I always remember a woman friend, who was a Conservative politician, very
astutely noticing that men did not "talk up" young women in the way they did
young men.
It is partly that we tend to choose as our protegees people in whom we see our
younger selves. There is a self-perpetuating tendency in all institutions for
this reason which leads to their replication in the old order.
Continue reading the main story
Start Quote
The challenge is for men to break the old patterns in a conscious way
End Quote
I had the good fortune of being mentored by some wonderful men who gave me
opportunities and advice throughout my career but not all women have such good
luck. The challenge is for men to break the old patterns in a conscious way.
The Women of the Year Lunch is an opportunity to celebrate women. Some have
high profile but most do great things below the radar.
They have broken barriers and broken records, struggled against the odds and
survived, created projects to improve our world and left us breathless with
wonder.
What's to sneer at? Measuring achievement is a way of taking stock, paying
tribute and sending out signals to all women that women are continuing to move
on.
We have to keep doing that - out and proud of the contribution women make. And
there is nothing po-faced about this event. Boy, do we laugh. But without the
boys.