Reasons why women aren’t appointed as exectutives

[ConstantlyCold]

^^www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-44310225^^

I’m shit at clicky links so it probably won’t work. But this list of 10 shitest excuses for not appointing women executives are amazing.
Kind of thing Charlie Booker would come up with in a mockumentary

The top 10 excuses for not appointing women were:

^"I don't think women fit comfortably into the board environment"
"There aren't that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board - the issues covered are extremely complex"
"Most women don't want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board"
"Shareholders just aren't interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?"
"My other board colleagues wouldn't want to appoint a woman on our board"
"All the 'good' women have already been snapped up"
"We have one woman already on the board, so we are done - it is someone else's turn"
"There aren't any vacancies at the moment - if there were I would think about appointing a woman"
"We need to build the pipeline from the bottom - there just aren't enough senior women in this sector"
"I can't just appoint a woman because I want to"^

It's would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing. I wondered if anyone said "well everyone else plays golf and we find the women don't have time to do that, so she wouldn't really fit in"

I am sure someone will be along soon to explain how these guys are just telling it as it is and they shouldn't be forced to have a weaker person on the team just to keep the pc brigade happy.

Perhaps they will also explain how it's women's fault that they are in this dreadful situation where they couldn't in all fairness to the other candidates put women on the board.

Here is a good link.

freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/female-ceos/

Here's a clicky link to the article in the op.

I saw this article and came right over to start a thread about it. This is a really important piece of research. So many times I see or hear people claiming that we don't really need feminism as such any more it can just be equality and we have equality already because discrimination is illegal.

There is a lot of willful ignorance about how much sexism there still is. Too many people prefer to think that the fight has been won, but it really hasn't.

While nine of these excuses are indeed laughable or patronising or complacent (or all three), I thought this one was pointing to a valid issue:

We need to build the pipeline from the bottom - there just aren't enough senior women in this sector.

This has echoes of the gender pay gap issue: what are the people who made the above statement doing about it?

"There just aren't enough senior women in the sector, so there's not a lot we can do until that changes" - complacent.

"There just aren't enough senior women in the sector, so we're focussing management training on women in our organisation, looking at recruiting senior women from other industries, and addressing the barriers to women being promoted" - steps in the right direction.

'Kind of thing Charlie Booker would come up with in a mockumentary '

spot on!

It's truly pathetic. They clearly don't give a shit

The one about how women can't manage complex issues I find particularly funny.

On average, women are more capable of multi-tasking, and they are more conscientious. The ones in FT work also manage both work and domestic arrangements, typically.

Yet somehow this person thinks that we won't cope in a boardroom because they talk about many different things.

I was really shocked hearing about tgis on the news. In some ways we've made so little progress. Some of those responses are deeply depressing.

I am really really lucky to work somewhere which actually values women and actively supports them to be promoted. 5 years ago our board was all male. We got a new MD 4 years ago and he thought it was ridiculous, so set about sorting it out. We now have a female chair, a 50/50 board and flexible working for those who ask - mainly those with kids. He also promoted me during my mat leave and signed off a phased return without batting an eyelid. The result of all this is that we have almost zero staff turnover and a really great, settled workforce who are happy to go at 100 miles an hour when needed because they know they will be looked after. Our pay is graded according to experience and we have absolute parity across men and women, because the M.D. has put a lot of work into correcting the pay gap we had.

It baffles me that lots of workplaces (run by men) can’t see the benefit of this. It’s shit. Shit excuses for the same old sexism which is so bloody prevalent. It’s also stupid in terms of business management because if you are happy to shit on your workforce you can be very sure they’ll shit on you eventually by leaving.

This will all be fixed soon with a few more real women on boards across the country That will fix the gender pay gap as well Win win. There may need to be all men shortlists to even things up again

It is rare to find a workplace which doesn't have this attitude. Sexism is as strong as ever