Lord Copper, LRD, I think you are absolutely write in the distinction between female-orientated peer support and training aimed at getting those poor little ladies up to scratch.... then we will be able to promote them.
I have mixed feelings about the notion of training. i have had almost no formal training that i have not paid for myself. Every time (countable on fewer than fingers of one hand) that anything at all has been offered to me at work, on their time and their dollar, I have absolutely bit their hands off, both as an opportunity to develop myself, and in insane gratitude at the message that seems to be expressed that I am in some way worthy of being invested in.
Part of my dribbling craven enthusiasm for this comes from a history of seeing highly problematic senior people, usually men, causing huge problems to the teams they are attempting to manage because of their aggression, emotional immaturity and general ego-driven crapness, and where these problems are recognised at all (never through direct complaints from staff, which always reflect badly on the complainant) the solution is to parcel the manager off for some lovely expensive and interesting training, which he always moans about having to attend and I am fiendishly jealous of, because nobody gives a shit about my development and I never cause any problems and very very very nearly NEVER get any training.
so there is a part of me that sees this "women in management" thing as a corrective to this usual thing of "squeaky wheel getting the oil". the scenario I outlined above is similar to in schools, where boys get a lot of attention, partly by causing problems but also by being aggressive about it when they are being bright - so the solution by teachers is seen as to nurture the bright behaviour as positive reinforcement that can act indirectly on managing the negative behaviour at the same time - meanwhile similarly bright and less problematic girls are relatively ignored. So one, slightly more positive, way of of looking at this, would be as saying "here is the lesson where we give all those girls the interesting teaching they deserve without having to manage the boys' egos at the same time".
I guess that is a bit Pollyanna. and the points above are very good.
but i guess this comes from a place of many occasions where I have wished "why are they investing in the guy that is causing the problem, where the situation is that his crap management has left his team with low morale, poor self esteem, no mentoring or coaching or motivation or objectives or personal development; and why can't they all be taken away for some training to make up for all the incredibly draining months or years of struggling to do the best job they can under a crap boss?"